"Fruiting Bodies": a fresh take by Kate Hooray Osmond

Miller artist Kate Hooray Osmond has had a busy year!

For the past several months, Hooray has been an artist-in-residence with Artrepreneur. Through this residency, she has developed a fresh approach to her work, and we are so excited to share some of her inspiration and process. 

Miller Gallery: What was your inspiration for this new body of work? 

Kate Hooray Osmond: I am completely fascinated by people. For a long time, I painted the products of human ingenuity in their environs: how we move through natural spaces and create our living places amongst nature. For the new series, “Fruiting Bodies,” I am now choosing to incorporate people amongst my brightly painted buildings, skies, and scenes. This series has become much more personal to me, and I have taken more freedoms in how I approach the canvas: swirls of paint, drips, washes of color. I can never give up my bold line-work, but I feel I am working in a balance that is feeding my creativity here. 

 

"Moonlight", 24"x24" mixed media on canvas 

MG: Can you tell us about your creative process/studio practice and how a painting begins?

KHO: I travel a great deal for my work and am always thinking of places as paintings. For this series, I start with a place as inspiration and consider how that place and time touched my emotions. What is the energy of this place? Is it fast? Subtle? Ordered? 

I cover the canvas in a wash of color and try to pull out the painting from there. Sometimes it is fast-going; sometimes the painting needs to take a rest in my studio while I work on something else. When the painting is ready to be addressed again, it will let me know. 

 

"Breathe Easy", 30"x30" mixed media on canvas  

MG: Do you have a favorite from this series and what does it mean to you?

KHO: Oh, that’s a very difficult question. “Like Water” is very special to me because it was the first of this series and represents a launching point into how I am working now. The colors are much more subtle than I usually work: grays, browns, green. It is a beloved piece.

 

"Like Water", 24"x24" mixed media on canvas 

MG: Are there any new techniques or elements in these works that you're excited about? 

KHO: I don’t think I have talked about my technique for mixing color before, but I hardly ever mix a new color. I will start with one color for a particular spot, and then to get my next color, I will mix a little something new into it, and so on and so on. In this way, I need to do a fair bit of mapping in my head of the composition because I have created one elaborate chain of colors that are all related to each other but need to land in their particular space to be effective. 

 

"Field Vision", 24"x24" mixed media on canvas 

MG: What would you like viewers to take away from your work? 

KHO: I would like viewers to experience my work and to take the meanings that resonate with them. I have purposefully not included an ending with my paintings, the story is up to the viewer. 

 

"Shippy" 24"x24" mixed media on panel 

We are so honored to share “Fruiting Bodies”, Kate’s joyful new collection, available now.

For any inquiries, please email info@themillergallery.com. 

 "Winder" 24"x24" mixed media on canvas