Katie DeGroot was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan. She attended high school in Chicago, Illinois, and college in New York City and Normal, Illinois. After living and working in New York City for many years, Katie moved to her grandparents old dairy farm in upstate New York by the Hudson River. Over the past 30 years DeGroot has taught art classes, was the Director of the Skidmore College summer studio art program, raised beef cattle, and ran a CSA. Not to mention helped to raise a wonderful son, Niles. These pursuits helped support and inform her artistic practice. DeGroot uses natural objects, “her muses,” as starting points for her paintings, to help explore personal conversations and formal ideas. She finds inspiration in Roman processional marches, the Hairy Who, Dutch Tavern Scenes, many other artists’ work, and various human interactions such as cocktail parties and dancing. Trees grow in context to their situation and in relation to the other trees around them. If you look, you’ll notice that they are all individuals within a larger group of similar species, just like us.