Robin Kappy is a landscape painter and portrait artist. She’s based in Manhattan but often spends weekends in the Catskills. Strongly tuned in to the watersheds, her work transports the viewer into the emotional private spaces her paintings suggest.
During our artist team’s May trip to the Catskills Robin produced a set of plein air studies focused on the Neversink River and the Delaware River East Branch, each painted in about three hours as a quick impression of the site. Let’s take a look at a few of them and hear from Robin how she approaches these outdoors subjects.
Here is a long view on the Neversink River, upstream from the reservoir. What is Robin’s process when painting a place she is seeing for the first time? “The very first thing is always an emotional response. What sparks my senses with excitement about the interplay of light, values, shapes, mood and space?” On this overcast day Robin focused on the river valley moving back in space under soft light.
This site is a “great divide,” a ridge separating the Esopus Creek watershed from the Neversink watershed. “Learning about the history and impact of the Watershed on upstate and NYC communities is a revelation… those of us who reside in NYC benefit daily from the clean water that travels the long ways from upstate to be readily available as per our needs. We ought not take this for granted.”
Finally, a view of the Pepacton Reservoir (part of the Delaware watershed) on a rainy day. In fact it was pouring down that day! Is she discouraged, painting in the rain? “Changing weather and shifting light conditions all bring challenges. The inspirations and labors are inherent in every painting.” Her goal? “I am accessing a state of awe at the stillness, vastness and beauty of nature. More and more, I think of a painting as a sort of haiku poem: expressing a moment of insight in relationship to painting and nature.”
Follow Robin Kappy on Instagram: @robkapart. Her closing thoughts: “The NYC Watershed Art Project brings people together to appreciate the beauty of that history and the Watershed. My biggest wish is that our efforts and art serves to help heal the legacy experienced by so many families along the Watershed. Painting is often a solitary event. This project places us as painters connected to the landscape and each other in the context of a rich art history, in keeping with the Hudson River School of painters of the 1800’s.”