Kathryn DeMarco

I am Kathryn DeMarco. I am an artist living and working in Durham, NC.

My medium is collage and my focus is portraiture. I love figurative painting and sculpture and drawing.

So all of my work is realistic portraits of myself, animals and people, all made out of cut paper, a little paint and glue and lots of skill and imagination.  Enjoy!

WORKING METHOD

The cut and paste technique is a process that I started experimenting with in college. I have worked to perfect and enjoy this method ever since. The process of choosing colors and textures and then applying them to a detailed drawing slows me down and allows me to think about the composition.

Each painting takes many steps (and bottles of wine and hours of music) to complete. First, I make a small pen and ink sketch to visualize the composition. Then I do a full size charcoal drawing with as much tonal detail as possible. I work from photographs and life. Next, I begin to paint! I try to work from the background to the foreground, but sometimes the figure or animal is too fascinating to leave in charcoal. I rifle through my huge box of paper, magazines and fabrics to “fill in” the color. If I cannot find the color I am looking for, I paint paper with acrylic paint to achieve the color that I need. The “color” is then glued onto the drawing.

Black and white collages cause a little more mental struggle. Many times I find the perfect piece of paper for a certain section and flip it to apply the gel medium and, gosh darn it, the back has an equally intriguing image for another section!

I use 100% acid free rag paper and acrylic gel medium. All papers used in the collage are as stable as possible. The paintings are finished with a UV Protecting Self Leveling Gel.