Biography
Kathleen Gross completed her undergrad program at Wayne State University, Detroit, receiving a BFA in painting in 1975. She began graduate school, but soon moved from painting to photography. She was attracted to the hard, industrial look of the changing Detroit landscape and began to shoot chromes to project in the studio to paint. But the instant gratification of capturing the light as well as the image, brought on the love of photography. She began printing from color slides, but found a job shooting real-estate, which provided an endless supply of black and white film, she sold her engagement ring to buy an old 35mm Nikon and was never without it. Everyone she knew was used to the “click” and hundreds of portraits were soon taped all over her apartment walls.
In 1981 she moved to San Francisco, on a road trip that never went back. It was easy to find work here, in photo labs. She had no interest in becoming a commercial photographer, just making a living and affording the supplies to produce her art. She did, however, carry her brushes and paints, always planning resume painting.
She soon found employment with a multi-image company in San Francisco. She worked with a tight group of media artists to produce multi-projector slide presentations for corporate events. As a camera operator, she experimented with film effects in her spare time and developed a method for producing bright, abstract imagery in 35mm chromes. She continued shooting black and white negs and spend thousands of late nights in the darkroom.
By 1990, the digital world and computer graphics was closing the slide production houses. Kathleen, and her fellow media workers, went freelance. She took classes in design graphics and photoshop. She also moved an old animation camera into her commercial living space and continued to find work with the last of the film world, mainly duplicating slides and shooting artwork. She bought her first, of many, digital cameras and closed up her darkroom in 2005. She began designing powerpoint presentations which provided a living, but spend countless hours scanning and digitizing her slides and negatives.
In 2013, she took a drawing class, working with pastels. 2014, she packed up her paints, brushes and all she could carry and joined a small group of painters from the East Coast on a 2-week program on a Greek island. Here, she picked up the brush for the first time in 35 years and re-discovered her love of painting with oils. She is trying to retire from the world of corporate graphics and paint full time, drawing inspiration from the many years of photography.
Kathleen is a realist painter and works every day. She paints slowly, studying the light, shadow effects, color and mood. She also continues to print from her thousands if photo images. All prints are now done using a Canon Pro-10 printer and 100% museum quality rag paper.
Please visit her website and view the history from early black and white photos to current paintings. She is very interested in showing recent work in painting and photography.
