Kathleen Eaton is a Chicago area artist whose work is an interpretation of city and suburban environments. Her paintings reflect a fascination with architectural spaces and the unexpected solitude or human activities that occur within them. From this interest her work has developed to explore the relations between imagination and reality in man made surroundings.

Her paintings are begun with an idea of a place, real or imaginary, then proceeded by a series of sketches to a full-sized drawing, and the final oil painting is done from this. The technique she uses involves building up areas of color through the application of many thin layers of transparent paint.

The artist's painted edition work is a combination of stencil and oil painting techniques. A color compositional study is first done to get an idea of how the final picture will look. Next, the basic color and pattern areas are developed using the serigraphic stencil process to apply oil paint onto hardboard panel. Each color requires a separate stencil. After each stencil layer hand painting is done to achieve tonal variations and details. Typically over 150 different stencils are used. These mixed technique pieces are done in small editions, 50 or less, and numbered sequentially as finished.

Her work has been featured in 1-person and group shows for over 25 years. In addition, her paintings and editions have been acquired nationally for public, corporate, and private collections.

Kathleen Eaton's studio is located 35 miles northwest of Chicago. She continually has new works in progress and will schedule studio visits for interested parties.