I have a childhood love of barns. I did not grow up on a farm, or spend summers visiting relatives in the country, and yet I find there is something both lonely and mysterious about the way a barn occupies the landscape. I am drawn to their simple iconic shapes and have collected hundreds of barn images, photographing them across the country. They suggest to me ideas about time, friendship, stillness, connection, and these ideas play out in my paintings. Each one is a struggle to uncover the essential, strip away what is not needed and present a clarity of vision. When a painting succeeds (and of course not all of them do) it goes deeper than description - a story, an emotion, something true emerges. Anne Kauff is a visual artist working in the Chicago area. She is a selftaught painter who has acquired her skill set painting en plein air. She works in oils and has focused for the last 10 years on a series of quiet, meditative paintings called “Barnscapes”. Her one person show, “Chasing the Light; Barnscapes of the Rural Midwest” was chosen as pick of the week in the arts section of the Chicago Tribune. She has been selected to participate in several artist residency programs, including The Fields Project, GAAC Artist-in-Residence program, and the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency. She is a popular oil painting and workshop instructor. Her work can be found in many public and private collections.
