Born 1956, Berkeley, California
Through the unique usage of color, light and spirit, K.L. McKenna’s style captures the landscape in a most unexpected way. Her paintings are not just paintings of landscapes but color harmonies of a very high and unusual order.
K.L. McKenna’s inspiration for the west comes from childhood summers she and her family spent prospecting for fossils in Wyoming with her paleontologist father. Her scenes of Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming and Montana reflect her enthusiasm and spiritual connection to the geology of the west, where she paints on site throughout the year.
K.L. McKenna, a resident of Woodstock, NY and Ward, CO, has had extensive experience working for museums and top exhibition design firms in New York, such as Ralph Appelbaum Associates and Albert Woods Design. She worked throughout the United States and Canada as a graphical user interface designer for major banking firms such as Citibank, First Boston and Lehman Brothers. K.L. McKenna was awarded a U.S. Patent for “The Geozoo,” an educational toy design. She studied painting first with Mary Buckley at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and later with Nicholas Buhalis at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston, NY..
K.L. McKenna participated in the Artist-In-Residency Program at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ where she completed 12 paintings that were exhibited at the Museum, December 2008 thru May 2009. Her oil “Little Colorado River I” was chosen to be included in the museum’s permanent collection. She has also exhibited 24 of her paintings at the Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, GA, where “Wind River Canyon, WY” was chosen for the museum’s permanent collection. She has participated in the annual auctions “Expanded Horizons,” Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT, and the “Annual Buffalo Bill Cody Show and Sale,” Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY. She is listed on AskArt.com, and she has exhibited in a variety of galleries across the United States and in Germany and Africa. Her work is also included in many corporate and private collections.
She is currently on the Board of Trustees at Pratt Institute. She is President of the Arts Society of Kingston (A.S.K.), which she cofounded in 1995, and holds memberships with the Woodstock Artists Association and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.