Don Gotterbarn

I have traveled widely and am overwhelmed by the amazing beauty in the world, even in the colors and shape of the simplest objects- the shape of a fence post beside a field reflecting the morning sun or the twist and angles of an ancient mountaintop tree on the Blue Ridge. I try to capture and share this beauty using watercolor and to show the things that gave me such visual joy, so my paintings tend to be of what I have actually experienced.  I do not paint a photographic copy of what I see in nature but use “artistic license” to translate and interpret what I feel about what I see. The new image is an expression of what moved me about the scene. Sometimes I paint the world with the colors I wish were there. Although I paint a public scene, my paintings are very personal. I work primarily in subtle transparent watercolor to capture my love of the visual world whose beauty I cannot not paint. My love of color began along the Hudson River Heights in New York. After studying at universities in NY and travel across the US including work at the University of Southern California, I moved to East Tennessee in 1990 and began a love affair with the mountains of Tennessee. I travel internationally and have studied under a variety of artists in the USA and England. I am a member of the Tennessee Watercolor Society, the Kingsport Art Guild, and a member and past president of the Watauga Valley Art League. My paintings hang internationally- Australia, England, New Zealand, Slovenia and the USA.  I have received national and international recognition for my work in computing and in art.