Katie Wyatt not only enjoys painting it is part of her. It is evident in her style. Each flick of the pallet knife is carefully considered. Her brushwork is symphonic. She loves what she does. Her paint melds beautifully rich and warms the canvas. Impasto is a technique where paint is applied in thickly to the surface. You can see the style clearly as the paint casts deep shadows. Generally her canvas is “dripped” with contrasting colour and dried. She then attacks it with copious amounts of paint and impasto medium. What I appreciate about Wyatt’s style is her ability to maintain the subject of the work when it could easily be lost in the technique. She enjoys contrast, texture and of course colour. These things together create rhythm. The beauty of her work is she is able to maintain balance.
“Olivia Jane”,2011 is a bold portrait of a young girl, Wyatt’s daughter at the age of three. Her piecing blue eyes stare out at the viewer. Her hair is chunky and textured through the impasto technique. Again I am drawn to the bold strokes of palette knife and brush. Flecks of reflected colour appear all over the canvas, surprising you. Her palette is broad and incorporates an array of hues, yet nothing is out of place. Wyatt can bring out a lot from her acrylic medium. She stretches it to the limits. Black and navy blue form the blocked stark shadows and border the features of this girl. Rich thick textural lines spread across the work and captivate your eye. This work won her “the most outstanding portrait” prize at the Balco Balaklava show. It is easy to see why.
Impressionist painters frequently use broken colour and use the viewer’s eye to mix it. The primary concern for them was capturing light. The Expressionists took this broken colour technique and showed their souls through it. This work is expressionist in this regard it goes beyond a mere portrait and seeks to show us something more.
“Terabithia”,2010 owes its name to the book Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson. It is a secret, wondrous country that is reached by swinging over a rope across a dry creek bed. It is a place where imaginations of two young children; Leslie and Jess, came to life. It is also the first book that made me cry. Wyatt uses broken colour in her extensive colour palette to give this forest glade life for the viewer. The trees are contrasted against the pale light shining through them. This is a dreamy place, yet there is uneasiness to the landscape. The angles tip my eye about and I can’t seem to take focus. The strong sunlight blinds me. Thick texture defines this piece with the bold outlines of the trees being a solid structure on to which your eyes can focus. The tree tops seem aggressive in nature, alive with colour and fire. There is a rhythm to the application of hue and this harmonises with the larger more pronounced colour on the ground. The bright sunlight creates silhouettes out of the trees. Turning them almost into figures, stretching their arm like branches upward. Horizontal lines in a landscape painting create a sense of harmony and I can find none in this. The angular ground creates a sense of action and an air of trepidation.
Wonderful peice of art. Neat and clean work shows, artists great work and her experience in art. Color combination is very cute.