Kate Starling has found a home in the southwest her entire life—from her childhood in Phoenix, to her life in a small town near Zion National Park. The oil painter lives in, explores, and paints the canyons of southern Utah. After earning an undergraduate degree in geology, Kate spent years working outdoors: first as a geologist in California and Texas, and then as a National Park ranger with her husband in Utah’s Zion National Park. Her decade of exploring the land spurred Starling to devote her time to painting the landscape full time, and the geologist returned to school to receive formal academic art training at Southern Utah University and the University of Oregon’s graduate painting program. Starling’s paintings portray the natural world and focus on communicating a sense of place, atmosphere and dazzling light, retaining the immediacy of the painting experience. Trained to paint directly from observation, she has spent years creating works en plein air, learning the way light plays on the land, sometimes on canvases as large as 40 x 60 inches. Starling knows the strength of emotion that the landscape can trigger in her when seen in a particular light, and she strives to evoke equally powerful memories and emotions for the viewers of her work. The artist splits her time between the roads and trails of rural Utah, and her studio, where she paints in the home she built with her husband, Jim. Kate Starling’s work has been shown in exhibitions throughout the United States, including Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale (2018; 2019; 2020), the Tweed Museum of Art’s Plein Air Painters of America Industrial America (2017), Steamboat Art Museum, Plein Air Painters of America (2016), Zion Centennial in St. George, Utah (2008), and St. George Art Museum’s Distance and Space (2002). Her work has been awarded Best Desert and Mountains in the Plein Air Tucson (2001), Best of Show & Purchase Award in the St. George Art Festival (2001), Solo Show Award at the St. George Art Museum (2001), Award of Merit at the Springville Museum of Art (2003), Collector’s Choice Award at Maynard Dixon Country (2009), and featured in publications such as Southwest Art Magazine, Western Art & Architecture, Plein Air Magazine, and more. Starling is a member of the Plein Air Painters of American since 2014.