KATHRYN WHITTEN
Kathryn Whitten is a visual artist from Point Reyes Station, CA. Kathryn and her family spend their summers travelling the National Parks, fishing and camping. She graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Visual Arts. In the summer of 2025, she worked as a National Park Ranger in Glen Canyon NRA.
Artist Statement
Art that deeply contemplates landscape is of vital importance in our current era. Landscapes contribute to the idea of an American consciousness that is built on recognition of our shared reliance on the land. This shared reliance is what makes each person who lives on this soil truly interconnected.
My art practice is about belonging to the American West. My work is about understanding our relationship to the land, and thereby each other, and honoring it as sacred. I utilize my personal visual vocabulary of the holy to depict the landscape. Repetition plays a central role in my work. It arises from an understanding of repetitive and focused attention as a spiritual impulse. My bodies of work become like prayers made material.
The American West is of particular importance in this exploration because of my personal belonging to it. I have grown up and built my life out West and have been inevitably shaped by it. I seek to faithfully depict the conditions of light and color that make this place particular. I depict scenes that suggest intimacy rather than transaction: trees lit by moonlight or hills covered in fog in the early morning. I am not simply a recreator here, enjoying memories of sunny days on the beach, but someone whose life is built here day by day, someone whose soul and body, whose family, community, and country are dependent on the well-being of this place.
As Wallace Stegner points out in his essay, “Striking the Rock,” the American West is special because of the amount of protected land here - protected by the National Park Service as well as responsible community-based agriculture. These protections have served as an important counter to the destructive and all-too-central characteristics of American culture that seek to exploit land and people for personal economic gain. Painting the American West is my way of contributing to this counter-philosophy of the West.
My work seeks to further respect for American land. I believe our current environmental crisis is fundamentally a spiritual and philosophical crisis. My practice seeks to explore how we might structure our lives and beliefs differently if we were to honor our connection to land.
CV
EDUCATION
Columbia University, B.A. Visual Arts New York, NY | 2024
Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa
EXHIBITIONS
Small Wonders, Museum of Northern California Art Chico, CA | April 2026
California Dreaming, Dorado 806 Projects Santa Monica, CA | March 2026
The Edge of Possible, Gallery Route One Point Reyes Station, CA | January 2026
The Art of Giving: Small Works Exhibit, Art Works Downtown San Rafael, CA | December 2025
Annual Box Show, Gallery Route One Point Reyes Station, CA | August 2025
Figure as Story, Petaluma Arts Center Petaluma, CA | April 2025
Solo exhibition, Marin County Public Library Point Reyes Station, CA | March 2025
Within Reach, NYC Culture Club - View here New York, NY | August 2024
Annual Box Show, Gallery Route One Point Reyes Station, CA | August 2024
Senior Thesis Show, Columbia University New York, NY | May 2024
On the Wall Showcase, Point Reyes Library - View here Point Reyes Station, CA | April 2024
On on the Wall, Marin County Library - View here San Rafael, CA | March 2024
On the Wall Artist Spotlight - Interview here
WTF Is Wrong with You? with the Useless Art Society New York, NY | November 2023
Marin County Fair, Marin County Civic Center San Rafael, CA | July 2023
Art on the Corner 8th Show New York, NY | May 2023
Featured Artists Show, Ratrock Magazine - Feature here New York, NY | April 2023
Solo exhibition, Petaluma Coffee & Tea Co. Petaluma, CA | June 2022
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Two-Person Exhibition at Toby’s Art Gallery Point Reyes Station, CA | May 2026