About Kathryn
Kathryn O'Grady was born in 1956 in Birmingham Alabama. She received a BFA from Michigan State University, East Lansing, in 1978, and her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1982. She moved to southern Maryland in 1997, where she paints and maintains a huge garden and a menagerie of chickens, ducks, peacocks, cats and one dog. Her work has been shown in solo shows over the past thirty years in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Bloomington, Illinois, Bethesda, and Baltimore. Her… more
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landscapes
My main body of work has always been a particular way of looking at landscape. My work is fueled by a lifelong obsession with color and awe at the monstrous complexity of the natural world. For the last several years I have lived and painted in rural Maryland. I am in love with the weather, the crops, the light, the dirt, the weeds. I am especially interested in the places where people's plans for the landscape collide with the riot of life that is there to begin with. Plants have an agenda of their own. I like the silliness, the frailty, the vanity of the human marks. I like the tornado of forces at work in nature. There is so much more going on than we can say.
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Wet Sunflowers24" x 24" oil on canvas
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Star magnolia with Crocus22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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November Vines - Cardinal22" x 22" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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November Vines - Yellow Leaves22" x 22" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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November Vines - Green Light22" x 22" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Nimbus's Barn22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Dogwood Berries22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Crabapple - a Good Year24" x 24" oil on canvas
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Cat Willow24" x 24" oil on canvas
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August Sunflowers22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
Wanda - You Can Keep the Children
Wanda is one of a large group of portraits, mostly birds, and the birds are mostly ducks. They are very small, 5" square, and have metallic backgrounds like little Russian icons. Many have short one page stories that go with them. I am working to make them into a book that tells the stories of these creatures as individuals
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Princess Buttercup5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Face5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Joe's Foot5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Lillard's Face5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Itch5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Irene Speaks5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Hatch5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Chin5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
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Sarah5" x 5" crayon and watercolor with metallic pigment
Large Birds
I have also been painting some large birds that I think of much like landscapes. These are all my birds, who I know well, so they are inevitably portraits, too.
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Poppy22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Pink Irene22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Truman and crabapple26" x 40" crayon and watercolor
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Truman and Irene22" x 30" crayon and watercolor metallic silver background
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Irene and Tardiva26" x 40" crayon and watercolor
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Rooster30" x 22" crayon and watercolor
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Young William22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Mayflower30" x 22" crayon and watercolor
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Joe22" x 30" crayon and watercolor
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Watermelon24" x 24" oil on canvas