"As an artist and illustrator, drawing from observation is the lens through which i contextualize all my ideas. My animation background is the foundation for capturing movement, storytelling, and breathing life into my drawings."
ARTIST STATEMENT
My creative process begins by embodying my personal expressive voice, using the textures and mark-making possibilities of charcoal, pastels, gouache, pencil crayons, and graphite. I enjoy working with the figure as subject matter, visually exploring how deep emotions can reshape, distort and transform the physical body. I enjoy delving into childhood memories while also attempting to stay in the present and capture the expressions of joy and connection in everyday human experience.
I am inspired by drawings and forms found in folk art and seek ways to interpret them into the contemporary context of a highly-designed modern world. I capture these forms through an emotionally raw lens, as the artist bearing witness. I aim to visually project a subject’s inner emotional state externally, capturing descriptive details from observation that amplifies their personality and humanity. I achieve this by combining observation, expression and invention simultaneously.
KATHRYN DURST
Kathryn is a graduate of Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. She works as an illustrator, designer, printmaker and teacher.
With a background in animation, she has interned with Pixar Animation Studios in addition to working with various children's book publishers including Puffin Books, Tundra Books, Walker Books, Candlewick Press, Simon & Schuster, and Random House Children's, among others.
Her books have many accolades such as reaching #1 New York Times Best-seller for Hey Grandude! by Sir Paul McCartney, Being selected for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, and winning the Hackmatack Children's Choice Book Award in 2023 and 2024.
As an artist I am observing, as a designer I am inventing.
SEE MY WORK
