Artist Interview: Kelly Gowan

Artist Interview: Kelly Gowan

What are your ear­li­est mem­o­ries relat­ed to art?
My ear­li­est mem­o­ries are of my dad paint­ing. He did amaz­ing oils like his mom, and gor­geous pen and inks. Our home was always filled with my dad and Grand­mas art as well as my sis­ters who is also an amaz­ing artist with a true eye for col­or. Then in col­lege I did a huge water­col­or tur­tle and fell in love with the process. But life got in the way, and I did not make time for myself to paint again until recent years.

How and when did you start becom­ing an artist yourself?
In col­lege I paint­ed a lit­tle bit, but I was always the dream­er artist. I want­ed to so bad. I loved look­ing at art. I loved my dads paint­ings and draw­ings and for sure my sis­ters. I real­ly got the most into art with my friend Kim­ber­ly. I would go to her house when our kids were hang­ing out and look at her paint­ings. What I loved most about it was what I saw in the paint­ings. I longed to be paint­ing myself and express­ing my own beau­ty and feel­ings through art. In 2016 I start­ed paint­ing and was blessed to be able to do it full time.

What was the evo­lu­tion like toward find­ing your cur­rent voice and visu­al vocabulary?
The evo­lu­tion has been in one sense been fast mov­ing. Mean­ing I can’t believe where I am today and how many paint­ings I have sold as a young artist. But at the same time it has been years and look­ing back at how my art keeps trans­form­ing into pieces that are tru­ly amaz­ing you can see it real­ly has been an evo­lu­tion. I think the rea­son for that is growth. I keep learn­ing new tech­niques by exper­i­ment­ing and learn­ing from oth­er processes.

What is your process like?
My process all depends on the type of medi­um and paint­ing I am cre­at­ing. But I can tell you this..it starts with a vision of what I see at the end, or what I think I want. Then begins research, inspi­ra­tion, and ORDER. The order how I will make that vision come to light takes as much time as the actu­al paint­ing part does.

Is there any­thing from your artist state­ment that you wish to expound on, that you nor­mal­ly don’t have the chance to discuss?
I do not want to ever lim­it myself to just one medi­um or style. I feel like I am an artist to my core and to me that means express­ing that cre­ativ­i­ty how I want to in each paint­ing. There­fore I have many styles and medi­ums to offer to var­i­ous col­lec­tors. I also enjoy work­ing on com­mis­sion projects. I love going into a new home, and lis­ten­ing to the home own­er to see what col­or schemes and styles they like. Because I like work­ing with var­i­ous medi­ums, that allows for com­plete­ly unique paint­ings to go through­out one home.

What do you try to con­trol in your sur­faces, and what do you leave to chance?
I just depends on the paint­ing medi­um and style I am doing. The chance is in every painting…but a direct­ed chance.

Where do you see your work going from here?
I see my work tru­ly ele­vat­ing and con­tin­u­ing to get bet­ter and larg­er. All the exper­i­ment­ing I do with my process­es allows me to alter and bet­ter the art I am cre­at­ing. To reach new levels.