Emerging Artists | Katy Ann Fox

Peace offerings

Katy Ann Fox, For Those Who Know, oil, 12 x 12.

Katy Ann Fox, For Those Who Know, oil, 12 x 12.

This story was featured in the November 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

IF YOU ASK Katy Ann Fox, the pink and purple hues of our world could use a little more appreciation. “So I’m always trying to find places in my paintings to put them,” she says. Fox travels throughout the West in search of landscapes and timeworn structures to paint—places with stories to tell, she says. But some of the artist’s favorite subjects are near her home in Jackson, WY. These include a small pink house on Antelope Flats as well as Jackson Peak, a prominent summit that “glows pink” on summer evenings. These subjects, she notes, allow her to use as much pink paint as possible.

Another thing to know about Fox is her fondness for square canvases: her all-time favorite size is 12 by 12 inches. “It’s just enough space, but not too much,” says the artist, who has perfected her texture-making techniques at that scale. Expressive paint application is a major aspect of her artistic language, influenced partly by the vigorous brushwork of Edgar Payne—“he’s been monumental in my development,” she says—and by her own work in three-dimensional art forms like woodblock carving, with its “slow-motion, intentional carving strokes.” Not surprisingly, Fox works with a variety of tools when painting, from brushes and knives to rulers and business cards. “I’ll drag them through my paint,” she says. “There are all sorts of fun textures to be made.”

The artist’s spirited approach to painting has been attracting increasing recognition. She was invited to paint a mural in Elko, NV, as part of the Elko Mural Expo in September, and in July, the Idaho native snapped up Best of Show at the Driggs Plein Air Festival, in which she has participated nearly every year since its inception eight years ago. Fox credits the Idaho event for reigniting her love for the region, so much so that—after completing her graduate studies at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2012—she moved back to the area. Her hometown of Jackson, just 30 miles southeast of Driggs, features the western landscapes and colors she grew up loving, not to mention a community that supports the arts. “The things I want to be surrounded by are peace, beauty, understanding, and harmony,” she says. “My painting these things are excuses to spend more time in these moments, and then create and put these moments into others’ worlds.” —Kim Agricola

representation
www.katyannfox.com

This story was featured in the November 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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