Kent Paulette is a self-taught artist who uses uninhibited, energetic brush strokes to create paintings that leap off the canvas, alive with color, texture, and movement. Paulette (a.k.a. Derfla) lives in North Carolina where he paints in a studio overlooking the mountains. He finds inspiration from the natural world that surrounds him and regularly hops into the mountain creek in his backyard to help rejuvenate his spirit and senses.
For K. Paulette, each painting is a gamble, a leap into the unknown, a wild ride of exploration and experimentation. He paints to figure things out, not to achieve a specific result. Unexpected or unintended outcomes are welcome; they offer openings through which new possibilities can be glimpsed, imagined, and developed. K Paulette works to exploit these opportunities, continually pushing himself and his paintings beyond the boundaries of habit and into the realm of chance.
As an Appalachian native, Kent Paulette knows the flora and fauna of Appalachia. Many scenes of the Appalachian wilderness have become the subject matter of his work, and Paulette brilliantly depicts everything from the beautiful displays of fall foliage to the soulful gaze of the fox or bear. His paintings are a display of joyful eccentricity, and Paulette has described himself as undertaking each painting with vigor and excitement, making quite a mess in the process, but ensuring that the marks land on the canvas just as they’re supposed to.
