Kelly Curl
STUDIO 107
About
Kelly Curl’s paintings begin with attention. They arise from time spent looking—standing still in the field, moving slowly through a landscape, tracing light as it shifts across form. Drawing, photographing, and painting are not separate acts but part of a continuous way of knowing, each mark a response to what the land reveals through patience.
Her work explores landscape as process rather than image. Forms gather and dissolve, colors press forward and recede, and surfaces hold evidence of revision and return. Geology, water, wind, and growth are not depicted literally, but felt through layered paint, gestural marks, and subtle shifts in tone. The paintings carry the memory of natural systems in motion—erosion, bloom, accumulation, weather.
Curl’s practice is shaped by a designer’s way of seeing: studying relationships, testing structure, and allowing intuition to guide resolution. Field sketches and photographs serve as fragments—impressions rather than instructions—that are reworked in the studio through oil, watercolor, gouache, ink, and mixed media. Representation gives way to abstraction and back again, creating space for ambiguity, atmosphere, and discovery.
At the heart of the work is craft and touch—the physical act of making, the resistance of material, the quiet conversation between hand, surface, and time. These paintings invite viewers to slow down, to linger within color and form, and to sense landscape not as fixed scenery, but as a living, breathing presence. In this way, seeing becomes an act of care, and painting a form of stewardship.
Artwork
Original works and merchanise available from my studio. In-person visits and purchases welcome!
Contact
Kelly Curl
Studio 107
720-341-3203
Email
www.kellycurlfineart.com
Instagram | Facebook
3 Square Art
2415 Donella Ct, Ste 110
Attn: Studio 106
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Inquire about originals, commissions, or studio visits. Plan a visit!
Biography
I am an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape at Colorado State University. I joined the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture faculty as Assistant Professor in 2010. My vast skillset provides the opportunity to teach a variety of courses, including Digital Methods, Drawing the Landscape, Fundamentals of the Landscape Design Process, Environmental Analysis, Fundamentals of Ecology, Form and Expression in Garden Design, Advanced Site Engineering, Design and Nature, Ecology of Landscapes, Seminar of Designed Landscapes – Theory and Criticism, Comprehensive Landscape Design, Topics in Theory and Garden Design, and Native Plants in the Landscape. In 2015, I was awarded the Charles N. Shepardson Faculty Teaching Award at CSU.
I have exhibited at Colorado State University, BHA Design, and Morgan State University and currently donated work to The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) Eighteenth Annual Silent Auction to benefit TCLF’s education and advocacy initiatives. In Nadia Amoroso's book, Representing Landscapes- Hybrid, I published an essay titled Ideation of Landscape Representation. In 2021, I co-authored a book review of Wenk Associates: Working with Water, posted in the American Society of Landscape Architects online blog, THE DIRT, and ArchDaily, a weblog covering architectural news. In 2021, I received a Special Mention for my design competition submission at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. My submission was exhibited at the Responsive Cities Symposium – Design with Nature in Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, I won two design competition submissions with my CSU landscape architecture students for Backyard Casitas, nature play structures designed and built at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens in Santa Barbara, California.
I am originally from central Pennsylvania and reside in Fort Collins, Colorado. I earned a Bachelor of Science in Comprehensive Science and Mathematics from Villanova University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied under James Corner, Laurie Olin, Peter Latz, and the late Anuradha Mathur. While at the PENN Graduate School of Design, I was an ASLA Merit Finalist and a recipient of the Van Alen Traveling Fellowship and the Pennsylvania Garden Club Scholarship.
After receiving my MLA, I apprenticed at Peter Walker and Partners, Inc. for seven years in Berkeley, California. While in the office, my projects included the Cleveland Clinic, The National September 11 Memorial in New York City, San Jose International Airport, Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and the University of California – Merced, and many others.
Throughout my life, I fondly remember always drawing. As my career developed, I discovered various mediums and representational techniques that supported design ideas. Today, I continue this exploration in my teaching and research by recording nature and its processes with photography, drawing, and painting.