KATHRYN MILILLO

I hope to convey the pure joy eyesight brings to my life. I am constantly amazed at color’s ability to dazzle. I love the play of light, the act of brushing on color, and the discrimination between warm and cool colors. I treasure the surprising moment when a painting resonates visually and metaphorically. A barn becomes a church, a landscape a living body, two chairs a relationship.

I am often drawn to our vanishing farmscape and the crumbling barns and buildings that challenge our current values. I especially love the haunting imbalance of windows and doorways in farm architecture. These aging matriarchs and patriarchs sheltered and nourished us, and their dignity in the face of their diminished value is something I want to honor.

In the process of painting, there is a meditative element to the choice “is it this color, or this?” which has always enthralled me. Oil’s tactile qualities — its layers, scumbles and glazes — help me place these two-dimensional pieces in a three-dimensional mindframe.