Kate Tortland
“My ultimate goal each day is finding an excuse to make something beautiful.”
Kate is a contemporary American painter and fine artist, working across multiple mediums and styles, continuously exploring new ways of creating.
Originally trained in classical impressionism, Kate made her name showing in galleries throughout New England. She was the youngest artist ever, at age 23, to be represented by a prestigious gallery in Martha’s Vineyard, where she now enters her 12th year of representation. She also is represented by galleries in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and has shown her work around the world. In 2012, she moved to Italy to study the old masters, and developed a love for ancient frescoes as well as the intersection of theology and art. While there, she fell in love not only with the art and history, but also the country itself; finding inspiration within the old cathedrals, narrow streets, and rolling hills.
This recent collection, Return to Eden, is a homage to the summers spent in Umbria and Tuscany, as well as an exploration of the intersection of heaven and earth. Soon after moving to Orvieto, she met her now husband, Daniele, and they now live with their daughter Athena, sharing time between Connecticut in the United States and Lake Bolsena, Italy.
This collection is the story of redemption: the redemption of beauty, of goodness, health, nature, our connection to God, each other, and ultimately, of hope.
Kate’s goal in creating this collection was to take a subject that has often been depicted as signpost of humanity’s tragic fall, and reframe it as our ultimate future. She wants these paintings to remind us that there is something more waiting for us, something that we can often sense, like a whisper in our ear, but can never seem to fully grasp. Kate wants to highlight the tension between the joy that she believes ultimately we were made for, and sorrow of being unable to reach it in this life.
