Kathy Venturella Steigert
Kathy was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and currently
lives in the Woodlands, Texas outside of Houston. Kathy started
painting while she was in grammar school when she received her first
oil set. Since then she has worked in water colors, oils, acrylics, India
ink and pastels. Kathy has painted and drawn portraits, wildlife, still life
and landscapes on paper, canvas and slate with subjects taken from
the New Orleans French Quarter and rural Acadiana. More recently,
she has worked with stained glass which led to mosaic art. Kathy also
works with gourds, using acrylic and oil paint, stains, wood burning
and carving tools, mosaic and stone. She is currently creating
dimensional pieces using acrylics and incorporating a variety of glass
tiles, Italian and polished marble, wood embellishments and polished
stone as a frame which extends from the painting. Dissatisfied with
conventional frames for her paintings and feeling that someone else
would be completing her piece of art, Kathy decided to use a variety of
other media to create her own frames. The use of glass tile, stone and
wood lets the painting's subject flow outward onto the frame leading to
several interesting features. The eyes are allowed to move around the
piece continuously without being confined by a standard frame and the
various ways light reflects off the tile and stone can change a viewer's
perception of the painting. Kathy's current pieces depict Tuscan
scenes, landscapes and orchid stills, which stem from her Italian
heritage and love of gardening. During a trip to northern California, she
noted the similarity in the Napa Valley landscapes to the Italian wine
country. Current projects include using landscape scenes from the
myriad of photographs she took while visiting there.
No matter where her life has taken her, whether going to school,
working or raising a family, there has been an easel in the background.
Now it is in the foreground.
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