Katharine Kennie is a contemporary landscape painter living and working in rural Grey County, ON. Her paintings explore her own relationship to nature and honour the details of natural spaces to nurture stewardship of our land and environment. “My subject matter comes from direct observation during walks through local landscape and places I visit- forests, wetlands, coastal regions, gardens, parks, and nature reserves. The work is developed through a process of compositing, drawing and making colour studies from my own photographic references. Pre-planning my compositions gives me the freedom to explore expressive mark making and surface texture in the studio. Working in a multi-layered process similar to the way a printmaker might work, I develop an abstracted image of nature that celebrates colour and the evocative possibilities of paint. The paintings are distillations of the places that inspire them. My aim is to simplify and intensify the natural world to celebrate the beauty of the places I encounter and want to see cared for and protected.”