1054 31st STREET, NW       WASHINGTON, D.C. 20007

Kathryn Stedham has been an exhibiting artist for over fifteen years, showing throughout the eastern United States.  Her oil paintings and monoprints have been featured in both private and public collections in Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, West Virginia, British Colombia, Vancouver and Japan.  Stedham is currently represented by Parish Gallery and Shade Tree Art Gallery in Aol Nang, Krabi, Thailand.

The artist recalls that as a child she would retrace in her mind, the Hangul, Korean characters inlaid in the family’s lacquered furniture.  At the time the words held no meaning for her though she steadily invented pictures from the simple lines and strokes.  “This naïve childhood act has shaped a lifetime of painting—viewing an image not for what it is, but more importantly, for what it can become…”

“It is with this same spirit that I seek to derive essence: articulating movement, rhythm and balance.  I view painting as a life-giving force, a language from which to give voice, to give life.  Interested in the transformative aspects of art, my recent work has taken on an atmospheric quality, expressing itself through passing phenomena such as observations of figures in motion, shifting tides, the clouds overhead or the change of seasons.

More recently, the artist was standing on the beach, painting in South Thailand the morning of the Tsunami.  Running from the rushing water, she managed to escape but lost her studio and all it’s contents in the ordeal.  A student of Zen Buddhism, Stedham’s zest for Asian travel has taken her to Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, and Cambodia.

Parish Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, from noon to 6 pm; other hours by appointment.