Kathleen Strukoff realized her passion for art at an early age. The oldest of nine children, Strukoff grew up in New Mexico and began painting desert landscapes at a very young age. “I can still remember my first painting was this old mission church, in an area called Black Mesa in northern New Mexico,” Strukoff recalls. “And the feeling that I had when I did this little painting, it felt like magic to me.”
The “spiritual quietness” that drew Strukoff to the desert landscape continued to fuel her passion for painting, even as she pursued a career as a business consultant. Since retiring, her days are spent immersed in her art, whether that’s painting on location at the Palm Springs Vintage Market or opening the doors to her showroom, Desert Modern Gallery, located in the Perez Art District in Cathedral City.
Over the years, her artistic voice has evolved from painting the desert landscape of New Mexico to viewing architecture and scenery through her own creative lens. “When I started out, I liked being able to look at something and replicate it on a canvas and record what I saw,” she explains. “Over time, it’s really shifted away from documentation and more to interpretation.”
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Today, her paintings are largely inspired by the works of influential artists such as David Hockney and Edward Hopper. “People look at my work and say it’s kind of between pure abstraction and representational work, or realism,” she says.
Her art is colorful, expressive and tactile. Strukoff uses thick strokes and dabs of paint to create a layered, dimensional canvas. And when she isn’t painting, she’s often creating mixed media with old photographs and maps, layered strategically on top of one another. Regardless of the medium, a theme persists throughout her art: serenity and repose in the desert.
“My work is sort of a blend of solitude and beauty, which I think is what the desert is about. And I hope that my paintings give people a chance to pause and breathe in the beauty. Sometimes I’m painting something that isn’t beautiful, but I’m trying to make it a beautiful scene,” Strukoff explains.
While she has painted famous Palm Springs landmarks and architectural gems, she is often inspired by the idea of transforming ordinary or overlooked infrastructure into something eye-catching and visually radiant. Her series “Hiding in Plain Sight” highlighted the beauty of regular suburban homes, and her painting “The Desert Decides” emphasizes an old “For Sale” sign she frequently drove by.
“It’s a ratty old sign that you pass by, Land For Sale. It looks like heck, but at twilight, the rose colors are on the mountains behind it. It’s so magical with the shadows and light,” she says.
Outside of her personal artistry, Strukoff is an active member of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, a program devoted to preserving the ICONIC Mid-Century Modern architecture of the city. She travels to local middle and high schools to teach students about the value of modernism in art and architecture. The students also have the opportunity to design and build a model of a Mid-Century Modern house and are awarded scholarships.
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Strukoff says learning how to paint as a child offered an escape from her chaotic household of eight siblings. Today, she values pouring into the next generation of young artists and visionaries growing up in her community.
“It gets a lot of kids who have never even thought, ‘Maybe I want to be an architect’ or ‘Maybe I want to be an interior designer or a landscape designer’ [to consider it]. Some of them decide to go to college, and they weren’t even thinking about that, so it’s probably one of the best things I get to do,” she explains.
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