Painting in public
Landscape artist Hilda Kilpatrick is all about the outdoors
By Saundra Sorenson 04/27/2006
Bucking the stereotype of artist as solitary, introverted character, Hilda Kilpatrick insists that not only does she prefer to work outside, she even likes the company.
“I did do a demonstration for the Artwalk,” she remembers, “and it’s really nice to interact with the people. I love people. I don’t mind if a kid wants to touch what I’m doing — why not?”
You might even call her a collaborative artist: During the last Artwalk, she remembers, “[a young boy] came by about three times and I said, ‘Do you want to try?’ And he put a little stroke on the painting.”
Her habit of creating out in the open dates back to her days of globe-trotting. “In the ’90s I took a backpack and I went to Europe — it was supposed to be for three months, but I stayed a year. I went to all my favorite museums, and painted all over the little [town] squares.”
Much of her work shows this influence: Although she classifies herself as primarily a landscape artist, her “landscapes” often show the domestic or metropolitan meeting the natural world. Works like her “Ventura Harbor” present nature as a striking force, overpowering the slight hints of human development that at first glance seem to be nothing more than rock formations. The strength of her seascape “El Matador” is that it takes a couple viewings to realize there are homes on top of the cliffs; the prominent tide serves as a reminder of the risky co-existence inevitable in coastal life.
And to observe her process isn’t a matter of watching paint dry: Peru-born-and-raised Kilpatrick has a somewhat unconventional method for capturing an image.
“I put a wash on all the canvases. It’s kind of a terra cotta color, an orange color — which is my favorite — and after that, I do the sketching and then I do the painting, which is the fun part.”
She always paints top to bottom “because,” she says, “I love to always put the sky first.” Often she layers paint on paint without waiting for any of it to dry.
And then she knows when it’s over. “When I stay too long with a painting, sometimes I feel that it loses some of its spontaneity. When I sign it, I say, ‘this is it!’ ”
Although artistic ambition took hold early on — as a student in Peru, and because of her constant museum-going in Holland and France — Kilpatrick became more serious during her first year living in the U.S., when she was stuck at home waiting for a work permit. She was passing her days volunteering at the library when her husband presented her with a drawing table, and she quickly picked up the brush again.
Now she finds herself attracted to natural landscapes, places like Canada Larga, an expanse of ranches between the Ojai Valley and Ventura that branch off a blink-and-you’ll-miss it side road that is largely unpaved. It is a place where rolling green hills and the sudden presence of dairy cows might make the average visitor feel she’s just crossed over into a postcard-perfect Ireland.
Kilpatrick remembers, “One time we were painting with some friends, and the owner of the ranch in the back, he stopped and he drove us all the way to the hill and showed us the way the property really works.” In this way, she adds, “I want to preserve places that may not be there in the future.”
But the places she preserves may not currently exist, not in the way that Kilpatrick presents them: an image as straightforward as a lamppost on a neighborhood sidewalk becomes lively and energetic on Kilpatrick’s watch, as she plays with colors that might have easily been pulled out of Peruvian folk art; bold hues of exotic flora that have been transported and tamed just enough to suggest a familiar Ventura scene.
This weekend Kilpatrick continues her tradition of participating in the Artwalk. Last year she was one of 11 artists commissioned to adorn a violin in a way that reflected her own style. In a collection of fine overhauled instruments that included mosaics and modern renderings of ancient Chinese tribal art, Kilpatrick’s had the distinction of being the most pastoral. The violin — which she described as a “sometimes intimidating” object — was made into a soothing thing whose distinctive figure blends easily into a curving, grassy hill. It is a tribute to one of her favorite locations, the Two Trees.
Kilpatrick’s exhibit at the upcoming Artwalk includes seascapes, scenes from the Sierras, and poppies — the aptly-named California Reflections collection.
Hilda Kilpatrick’s collection of oil paintings will be on display at Natalie’s Eclectibles. There will be an artists’ reception on April 29, 3 to 8 p.m. 494 E. Main St, Ventura.
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