A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, artist Kate Long Stevenson began her painting career while a student at the University of the South. Her lifelong passion for music, history and the arts was furthered with intensive study and travel before her 2003 graduation.

Kate considers each of her paintings an attempt to disconnect from a recognizable image and bridge the gap between traditional representation and abstraction.  Color, brushstroke and movement are valued as more important than either image likeness or the image itself.  The varying subjects of her paintings become a vehicle to view these elements; the subject matter is merely an invitation to appreciate the rest of the piece.

The artist’s most recent work includes the “Rotational” series, marking a dismissal of subject matter altogether.  These completely abstract paintings are rotated as she paints, so that each side of the piece is considered (and to be determined by the viewer as) the “right side up.”

Like her varying subjects and approaches to the canvas, her influences and inspiration run the gamut as well; Chuck Close, John Singer Sargent, Willem de Kooning and Howard Hodgkin are but a few of her favorite artists.

In addition to her work represented by galleries in the Southeast, Kate has donated much artwork to charity, including those benefiting the Duke Cancer Research Center and Greensboro’s Art Quest. She lives with her husband in Charleston, South Carolina.