Modern Beauty
Liddiard received the American Art Collector Award of Excellence for receiving the Silver Medal at the 2019 Oil Painters of America National Juried Exhibition.
Katie Liddiard has considered herself a still life artist since she was a little girl growing up near the base of the Wasatch Range in Utah. There she developed an interest in the natural world, primarily the local fruits and fauna that have continued to be the focus of her art today. It was in college where Liddiard refined her approach to the still life and since has developed her own artistic style.
“Going through college I was very much drawn to strong colors and abstract shapes while trying to figure out how to integrate my natural bend toward representational work. As I went through the academy to develop my skills on the representational side, my color sensitivities became more subtle, perhaps more subdued,” she says. “Since being out of school I’m finding myself exploring how to meld my love for color and abstraction with harmony and subtlety for richer more ‘me’ paintings. I’m still early in my career, so I’m excited to push this further in future paintings and see where I go in 10 or 20 years.”
Liddiard, who often strives for an atmospheric and airy quality in her work, says she considers her paintings impressionistic. She elaborates, “For most people, though, that idea might seem a little off since my paintings tend to be a bit more ‘finished’ than what is widely thought of when thinking about the impres
sionists. However, the approach I use to develop my paintings is very much through the mindset of impressionism, constantly trying to edit out unnecessary information to get an overall sense of unity, beauty and atmosphere.”
Color harmony is also important to Liddiard’s still lifes, which she begins by choosing a focal object and then building the composition around that item. She also looks for movement and atmosphere to keep the works interesting, with many of the elements being a continuation of the color. “I’ll play with a composition sometimes for hours, or days even, trying to get it right—until I can clearly ‘see’ the painting in my mind,” the artist explains. “Once I have a road map of what the painting is going to be, whether more direct or indirect in approach, then I can start the real work. Sometimes the same object in different situations will require different approaches, so I like to be open to what the painting needs— not necessarily dictating its outcome.”