Kathryn Lynch on Residency in Scotland
In May 2025, we welcomed Catskill, NY–based artist Kathryn Lynch to Colstoun as part of our residency programme. At the heart of Colstoun Arts lies a commitment to progressing the language of Scottish art by opening our house and grounds to visiting artists from across the globe, creating exchanges that extend far beyond geography. Each residency becomes not only a period of studio production, but also a conversation between place and practice—an evolving dialogue that folds Colstoun’s landscapes, histories, and myths into the work of those who come here. In Lynch’s case, this dialogue unfolded with remarkable sensitivity. Known for paintings that hover between observation and expression, she arrived with an openness that allowed her to fully absorb her new surroundings. “I can only paint where I am,” she has said of her practice, and true to this ethos, her month with us became a process of deep immersion. She walked the grounds daily, absorbing the shifting colours of the Scottish sky, the particular textures of woodland and parkland, and the sense of time embedded in the estate’s architecture and near 1000 year history. What emerged was not simply a body of work created at Colstoun, but a set of responses that engaged directly with the layered character of this place—its mythology, its living landscape, and its enduring commitment to the natural world.
Lynch is known for hazy, dreamlike scenes that never seek exact likeness but instead pursue atmosphere, rhythm, and the fleeting essence of the everyday. Much of her practice draws from the landscapes and encounters of her life in New England and New York. To watch her absorb the subtleties of Scotland—the softness of the light, the particular blues and greens of the countryside, the architecture of hedgerows and woodland paths—was to see her painterly language tested and transformed. At first tentative, her brush grew increasingly assured as she found her footing within this unfamiliar terrain. Over the course of the residency, she produced three large canvases (150cm x 130cm), each one moving closer to her signature style yet unmistakably shaped by her experience of Colstoun.
What makes Lynch’s work compelling is her ability to elevate the ordinary into something archetypal. Everyday scenes—boats, trees, paths, rooftops—become suffused with a sense of the mythic. Human presence is often implied rather than depicted, as though figures are absorbed into the pulse of the landscape itself. With gestural brushstrokes and an earthy, resonant palette, she captures the sensation of a moment rather than its strict detail. This space between recognition and suggestion allows viewers to project their own memories and imaginings onto the canvas, creating a personal dialogue with the work.
A central force in Lynch’s practice is her treatment of light. During her time at Colstoun, night skies glowed with soft illumination, fields were painted in expansive blue studies, and woodland paths meandered through shifting shadow. Even the manicured Victorian parkland, so steeped in artifice, appeared in her hands as something both mystical and alive. The emotional register of these paintings is less descriptive than associative, like recalling a place you have once visited—a memory held in half-shadow and half-glow.
Though not a narrative painter in the traditional sense, Lynch’s works are deeply lyrical. They invite stories to form around them, stories born from atmosphere and mood rather than plot. In a contemporary art world often leaning towards abstraction or conceptual frameworks, Lynch holds firmly to a painterly vision that is both timeless and distinctively her own. Rooted in reality but not beholden to its details, her paintings balance intimacy and universality, offering fragments of what feel like collective dreams.
In an age defined by overexposure and distraction, Kathryn Lynch’s work reminds us of the quiet, enduring value of attention. Her paintings slow us down. They anchor us in the essence of place and moment, affirming that some of the most profound truths lie not in spectacle but in the subtle textures of the everyday. At Colstoun, her presence underscored what our residency is designed to foster: encounters between artist and environment that expand not only an individual practice but also the broader conversation between art and nature.
Artist Biography:
Kathryn Lynch (b. 1961, Philadelphia, PA) is an American painter based in Catskill, NY. Her practice is rooted in observation, memory, and a keen sensitivity to place. Working in oil and occasionally watercolour, Lynch distills everyday subjects—boats, dogs, cityscapes, flowers, moonlit skies—into poetic compositions that hover between figuration and abstraction.
She studied at William Smith College and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, going on to receive her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Lynch’s work has been exhibited widely in the United States, with exhibitions at Karma Gallery, Maya Frodeman Gallery (Jackson, WY) Sears-Peyton Gallery (New York), Tayloe Piggott Gallery (Jackson, WY), among others. Her paintings are held in numerous private and public collections including Fort Wayne Museum of art, Fort Wayne, IN University of California Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA Microsoft, Redmond, WA Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ Johnson & Johnson, Princeton, NJ Progressive Corporation, Cleveland, OH Pfizer, New York, NY Millennium Art Collection, Ritz Carlton, Battery Park City, New York, NY Wellington Art Collection, London, UK and others.
Lynch often describes her process as painting “what’s in front of me and what’s inside of me,” creating works that capture fleeting atmospheres and emotional resonances rather than literal representation.
