Three by Three: Guest Artists in Focus

QUESTION 2. If someone from a completely different century experienced your work, what universal human truth would they recognize?

• ANSWER 2. I think that many non Western people would see what my efforts are. Navaho weavers, cave painters, or any culture that abstracted visual, verbal or mathematical info could relate.
  
  I don’t see any western culture of Judeo-Christian belief system accepting it. Their rigid thinking permeated their culture. It was either their way or die. Witch hanging and burning, the Spanish Inquisition, colonialism are a few examples of what I mean.
  
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Kathryn Burke Petrillo
Process Oriented Experimental Painter

BIO: Lives in Syracuse NY, and calls herself a process oriented experimental painter, using personal icons, color and design in a unique way. Her work has been shown in NJ, NY, PA and FL and collected by art lovers.

After attending Studio School of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pa. Kathryn worked as a graphic artist, designer and illustrator. She left that field to focused on painting.

Kathryn took courses in Atlantic Cape Community College, Syracuse University and private lessons with other more established artists to further her understanding of art mediums and techniques.

Kathryn has been published in Stone Canoe, an anthology of CNY creative people, in 2014 and 2021. Exhibited in Everson museum in 1982, Syracuse Biennial, On My own time show, Syracuse Tech Garden 2014, 2015 , Cazenovia art Festival 2015, Homer Center for the Arts 2024.


EMAIL: kathy.petrillo@gmail.com

QUESTION 3.  What do you create when no one will ever experience it—and why?

• ANSWER 3. When I first encountered Goldsworthy’s art I immediately recognized the importance of it and my personal connection to it.
  
  My family moved to a small farm in So Jersey from NYC in 1955.
  I have always enjoyed drawing, but many times I did not have paper and pencils. What I did have is fields. And woods.
  These were my drawing tools. I’d take a long stick and draw on the earth. I’d build things with sticks in the woods. It was how I communicated with my creative energy. 

  When I started painting, mixing colors like perhaps an alchemist, to make 3 primary and 3 secondary was a ritual.
  
  I don’t do that anymore but I still have a ritual. It’s simply breathing, centering myself and being present. Intuition, memory, accident and on purpose are all woven into what I create.
  
  
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QUESTION 1. What’s a technical “mistake” or limitation you’ve embraced that became essential to your artistic voice?

• ANSWER 1. As I get older, my senses have dulled and my hand isn’t so steady. So I’ve allowed my odd twitches and unsteady hand to have free rein when it wants it. Accidents are part of the process. In fact, they are random inputs that broaden view.  I do not use a ruler or tape in my work. I make a lot of jerky moves when trying to draw strait lines. To compensate, I have developed jerky lines and accidental brush strokes in my work. I can give credit to them for allowing me to break out of silly notions and rules I’ve set up for myself.
  
  
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