January 2021 2-D Featured Artist Kathy Gibbs

I believe art is meditation. You get lost in it and it stills your mind. Once the mind is still, it becomes a vessel and the art flows. In teaching art, I get to share my love for it with others.

I studied art at the University of Hawaii, but art is not something you study and then you are done. Each and every day I learn new information and techniques to incorporate in my work. I have always made some kind of art, but I began to paint at age 36. My work has been exhibited in various art galleries on the Big Island as well as the East Hawaii Cultural Center, the Volcano Art Center and the Wailoa Art and Cultural Center in Hilo, Hawaii. 

My work has sold at Omri Saint Gilles Fine Art Gallery at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel in Kona and at the Toulouse Lautrec gallery on the scenic drive just outside of Hilo. I’ve won several awards and taught art for two years to a group of Girl Scouts in Hawaii. I currently teach abstract art at the Cape Coral Art League. I work in a variety of mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastels and I enjoy interchanging from realism to abstract to afford room for my creativity.

No matter what medium I’m working in, I begin my process with realism by finding a strong composition of lights and darks. By staying true to the value changes and the light, the painting seems to paint itself. When working in abstract, I just have to get out of my own way and let the process take on a life of its own. It becomes a series of problems requiring a solution. I never know where I’m going and that is the fun of it. By combining the two, I get an unexpected outcome that is hard to replicate and far more interesting for the viewer.