Kelli Kaufman solo at Huff Harrington

A new body of work that captures the beauty and magic of the Louisiana wetlands is headed to Huff Harrington Fine Art this Friday, October 19th from 6 to 8 p.m., thanks to artist and Louisiana native, Kelli Kaufman. 

We’ve worked with Kelli for a few years now and we quickly saw a trend: the minute we’d get new work from her, it would fly out the door, leaving us with no inventory to show.  Now, that’s a great problem for a gallery and an artist to have – but we realized we’d have to come up with a plan to satisfy our clients who are passionate about Kelli’s  warm palette, attractive composition and the ever-so-slight abstract edge she incorporates into her paintings.

We kept pushing for new work and as fast as Kelli sent it, it would sell. So finally, she called us one day. “Let me work on a full body of work and get it to you all at once so you have a nice range and assortment of paintings to show.”

And thanks to that great idea, we’re debuting all brand-new work from Kelli in this show called Third Coast: Landscapes of the Gulf South – and its inspiration comes from Kelli’s travels here and abroad.

Isn’t the beauty of travel discovering that the very things you love at home are just as significant and beautiful in other locales?  For Kelli, Louisiana’s oaks, marshes and sunset skies are prolific in Hawaii, a destination Kelli visited in the last year.

“Sometimes going away brings a different level of focus and appreciation of the beauty in the familiar,” Kelli says. “I traveled a lot this year, especially to Hawaii and noticed similarities in the palms and flora to that of Louisiana plants. The palmetto, for example, is everywhere along the coast and symbolizes home for so many. Seeing familiar plants in a different place reminded me that the splendor of nature is all around us — even when we’re home. We just don’t always recognize it.”

We’re all excited to share this new show – and we love Kelli’s thoughts about creating a body of work like this: it’s all about the balance of artistic expression and the planning it takes to be a successful artist.

“For a one-woman show, I work on every aspect of my business, not just the artwork,” she said. “Having an out-of-state show with a deadline increases the internal tension between commercial success and painting from the heart. I began the paintings early in the year to allow each piece enough time and patience to evolve on its own. Abandoning the pressure and trusting the process is the only way to enter what I call ‘the zone.’ It’s when the canvas is leading and I’m following, open to the possibilities of free expression yet always connected to my roots.”

Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Kelli is a self-taught painter of southern coastal landscapes. We’ve always loved the way she conveys the nostalgic, untamed scenery of the south – the vast colorful skies, the wild meandering marshes and the moss-draped live oak trees which are all the primary sources of inspiration for her work.

In her paintings, she effortlessly leads your eye to far off vanishing points, capturing a moment in time that is both romantic and familiar.  Line and shape come in and out of focus with soft brush stroked of oil paint, cold wax, oil pastels and charcoal.  Her work is tenderly painted with emotion and a connection to her roots and symbolize Kelli’s longing to immortalize the fragile beauty of the land.

Kelli, we can’t wait to enter the “bayou zone” with you and to feast our eyes on this glorious show that celebrates the flora and fauna you love from your beautiful Louisiana.

See you all this coming Friday night! To take a pre-peek, click here.

Ta ta.