Kathe Fraga

My nature narrative paintings are inspired by the romance of vintage Chinoiserie, layered with a pattern, botanicals, color, and hidden motifs. We live in a 110-year-old Bainbridge Island home built with barnacled beach rock and weathered grey shingles. The old fir floorboards of our home, milled from the surrounding trees, remind me on a daily basis of the love and gentle patina of time—the sound and scent of the forests that surround us. With their decay and rebirth, they send their message to my art as I explore how the fresh beauty of the “new” evolves, over time, into something far more interesting and dramatic. Worn surfaces and distressed textures combine to create a sense of something soft and lovely and familiar; but yet, I feel the need to add a bold swath of color to add the modern and unexpected. It’s a resting place for the eye, a welcome disturbance as something reinvented emerges: gentle old meets dynamic new. 

Selected Press:

-MV Times- Read Nature’s colors take center stage in new exhibit at Nikki Sedacca Gallery

-The Observer- 530 Burns' Kathe Fraga and Linda Richichi show natural progression