Kathryn Stats paints landscapes of Utah, her home state, as well as Alaska, the Oregon coast, the countryside of Tuscany and the arroyos of Spain. Her artwork is noted for the use of color and her ability to play with light and shadow.

Kathryn Stats was born in Pocatello, Idaho in 1944. Her father was an engineer and her mother was a schoolteacher. Her father died when she was eight and her mother returned to her family home in Kaysville, Utah where she raised the family with the help of her sister.

In Kaysville, Stats was surrounded by extended family including her great uncle noted landscape painter, LeConte Stewart (1891-1990), who studied at the Art Students League summer school and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Stats has memories of Stewart painting outdoors and giving plein-air classes.

Married in 1963, Kathryn Stats began her own art career in the mid 1970s when her husband was transferred to Brazil. Stats, who is mostly self-taught, would paint as she explored the exotic neighborhoods of their new home. At first she did not paint the landscapes of Utah feeling that they were too obvious, but she was eventually drawn in by the views off the beaten path.

Stats was named one of the 100 most important living artists in Utah by a committee of historians, artists and collectors.

Source: Southwest Art, July 2005

Even though one can identify her paintings from across the room, the defining characteristics of Kathryn Stats' work are not easy to isolate. Her subject matter ranges from the roses that crowd her backyard to the snow in the nearby mountains. The southern Utah red rocks and northern Utah farmland are often subjects for her intricate compositions, which often defy the rules, but magically, always work. However, it's most often her treatment of light that draws you to her work. The red rocks of southern Utah glow in the sunlight and turn mysteriously somber in the shadows. Sage and alfalfa fields are rich enough to seem almost fragrant, as are her brilliant flower studies. Her skies are filled with the promise of the reflected light below, which is always precisely located to make the composition work. "I love the fall," she says. "The low angle of the sun lights the bottoms of the changing leaves with colors that really set me free."

It is that freedom that makes her work so enjoyable. Her love of color, her unerring sense of proper light and her skillful brushwork make her strong, deliberate paintings feel effortless.

Born in Idaho in the mid-1940s, Kathryn Stats has lived most of her life in Utah. Though her family moved often during her childhood, she spent her teenage summers in Kaysville, Utah, with her grandmother--the sister-in-law of the famous Utah landscape painter LeConte Stewart. Surrounded by the rural landscape outside and his wonderful paintings in the house, it isn't surprising that Kathryn would eventually start to paint. In her late twenties, living in Brazil with her husband and children, she began a career that has been both successful and gratifying. Her earliest lessons came from the books of such painters as Emil Gruppe and John F. Carlson. She later studied with Utah artists Ken Baxter and Frank Erickson.

Her floral studies and the distinctive landscapes that have become the hallmark of her work are in private and public collections worldwide. She has also garnered numerous awards from the growing list of exhibitions in which she has shown her work. Her most recent awards include "Award of Excellence" and "Artist's Choice" Horizon Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming, 2004; "Purchase and Merit Award" Springville Museum of Art, April Salon, 2003; "People's Choice" and "Artist's Choice" awards, Rising Star Juried Invitational, Wickenburg, Arizona, 2002; "Best Oil" in the Maynard Dixon Country Invitational, Mt. Carmel, Utah, 2002; "Purchase Awards" Desert News Art Show, 1983 and 2000; and "People's Choice Award" Merrill Johnson Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 2001.

"I think a good painting is like a good musical composition." Kathryn states, "It has harmony and rhythm, contrast and theme, sometimes even soloists. Those elements rarely just occur in a natural landscape. I find that I emphasize with detail and color, omit some things, mute others, even rearrange elements to create a composition that conveys my visual experience, my joy, to the viewer. It is this challenge that keeps me painting."

"The reason you keep doing it ---painting every day --- has to do with the viewer. You want the viewer to experience the same joy you feel---and nature sometimes makes it hard. So it's a process of adjusting, of emphasizing, softening, even omitting, to make what you paint convey the right message to the viewer. Sometimes it's a long process---other times the problems are easy to solve---but always---it's a joy.

Kakthryn Stats has painted the landscapes of Utah, Arizona, the Oregon Coast, the Southern Ural region of Russia, Italy, Hawaii and Alaska. She is known for her great color sense and breathtaking landscapes.

"The sheer beauty in art enlightens us all. It is that beauty that I am striving for in painting our glorious landscape. The challenges of solving the problems presented by the subject matter is what keeps me coming back."

Self taught, studied art for 15 years from Anton Rasmussen, Frank Erikson, Ken Baxter, Dan Baxter, Ed Mayron, and Edith Roberson.

Arizona Republic Newspaper, Phoenix, AZ October 1995
"Kathryn Stats, (Long Gallery) is a Utah artist whose best landscapes are a complete pleasure. The paint in them is given over to the subject and you know that Stats doesn't feel the need for any gimmicks to get her point across. Direct, honest and sensuous, they are the work of a genuine painter."

Exhibitions and Shows
Rising Stars Juried Invitational, Wickenburg, AZ - 2002
People's Choice Award and Artist's Choice Award
Maynard Dixon Country Invitational, Salt Lake City - Best Oil 2002
Invitation to Le Conte Stewart Festival, Bountiful, UT
University of Utah Women's Show
Invitation to Le Conte Stewart Festival
Salt Lake Center Live Auctions, Five years Quick Draw
Springville annual April Salon, 8 years
Deseret News Art Show , Purchase Award -2000-1983
Springville invitation to 1984 Women's Show
First Central Utah Regional Art Show at Utah State University Invitation
Dixie State College Invitational
Denver 8 State Wide "Art Zone", 1993
Utah Days of 47 Invitational, Salt Lake City, UT, 2002-1999 Featured Artist 2002
Maynard Dixon Country Invitational, Mt. Carmel, UT, 2001-1999
Plein Aire Painters of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1995
Zions Bank, Salt Lake City, UT, 2001-1998
Long Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ, 2002-1998

American Academy of Women Artists-
Merrrill Johnson Gallery, Denver/People's Choice Award - 2001
A Celebration of Art & Soup, Featured Artist 2001

Private Shows:
Salt Lake City Art Center Collectors Gallery
J. Christensen Gallery
Sego Gallery
The Gallerie at Eagle Gale
Plein Aire Painters of Utah
Southem Gallery semiannual shows
Art Masters, Park City, Utah

Publications:

Artist to Watch, Art Talk Magazine
Utah Holiday Magazine
Utah Art/Artists, 150 year survey
Southwest Art Magazine
Artists of Utah
Utah Profile, 1991-1992

Art Affiliations:
Charter member of Plein Aire Painters of Utah
Signature Member American Academy of Women Artists
One of the Hundred "Most Honored Artists of Utah" by Springerville Museum