Kathryn Donatelli

My work has always been influenced by my first exposure to art, the Italian and German Renaissance Masters and then later the Pre Raphaelites and the Impressionists. Even when it was not fashionable to paint in the classical realist style I continued to do so. Recently I have discovered a group of painters called Abstract Realists of which I am now a student. My new work is concerned with beginning a painting with abstract form and then finishing the painting with all of the values and subtle innuendoes of treatment of edges, color relationships and more. This approach ostensibly makes painting all about the process and not about the subject being painted. Ironically the results of this process potentially shows the subject in the most beautiful light and form imaginable.”

Portraits have always been my first love and they will be my last. I also enjoy landscape and still life and love to incorporate one of both into the portrait I am painting. One of my favorite paintings, "The Boating Party" by Renoir includes all three genres, portrait, landscape and still life in the most delightful way. The most wonderful light of the outdoors when it plays across the features of someone’s face and garment provides a truly fascinating complexity of color, form, structure and depth of field. There is also something to be said for the portrait existing within the simple environment of a single color story. The face tells it all, the expression draws us in and suddenly we feel we know that person. Through portraiture I seek connection with the viewer.

Kathryn Donatelli is a portrait artist, still life painter, mural painter and book illustrator. Born in 1947 in central New Jersey Kathryn relocated to Los Angeles in 1986. She has received more than 300 portrait commissions, designed, painted and installed over a dozen Private, Corporate and Public murals and has illustrated 3 children's books. Her work has been exhibited in over 10 juried shows from New York City to Los Angeles including a national juried show. Kathryn is an associate artist member of The California Art Club and an exhibiting member of the California Art League. She is proficient in many mediums including oil, pastel, watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal, acrylic and egg tempera.

Private Collections:

Glynn and JoAn Turman,

JoMarie Payton,

David and Elaine Marmel,

Dick O’Neill,

Gold Coast Capital Investment.

Education:

Graduate, DuCret School of Fine and Industrial Art.

Illustration and Watercolor, Los Angeles City College.

Workshops include: The 7 Color Contrasts of Johannes Itten, Beverly Cassell;

Nicolaides The Science of Drawing, Beverly Cassell;

Master Portrait Painting, David Leffel;

Still Life Painting, Stacy Kamin, ongoing.