Biography
Anne Kauff is a visual artist working in the Chicago area. A graduate of Purdue University, she picked up the thread of her passion for making art while traveling overseas. She has studied with Janis Pozzi-Johnson, and taken workshops with many outstanding instructors. She is an oil painter who has focused for the last 10 years on a series of quiet, meditative paintings called “Barnscapes”. One of her solo shows, “Chasing the Light; Barnscapes of the Rural Midwest” was featured in the arts section of the Chicago Tribune. In addition to her studio work she is an award winning plein air painter. She has been selected to participate in several artist residency programs, including The Fields Project, GAAC Artist-in-Residence program, and the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency. She is a popular oil painting and workshop instructor. Her work can be found in many public and private collections.
Artist Statement
There is an adrenaline rush that comes with painting outdoors in changing light and unpredictable conditions. Whether it is painting on the side of a mountain with the wind gusts shaking the canvas, or racing to finish a piece with black storm clouds gathering overhead, Anne Kauff uses the lessons she learns in her plein air practice to lend authenticity to her work in the studio. It is a matter of constantly learning how light works and prying ideas from nature, then carrying that information into a series that as captured her imagination for the past 10 years.
The series “Barnscapes” came about after 5 years of painting and photographing barns during a residency program called “The Fields Project”. Over time the series has taken on a life of it’s own, walking a line between modernist abstraction and realism. These midsize paintings in a square, or slightly out of square format are not concerned with documentation, but rather explore an emotional response to the subject. Drawn to the simplicity of barns and how they interact with their environment, her paintings project a Zen quality that is both peaceful and spare.