about the artist
Madeline Kendall is originally from Sacramento, California where she developed a passion for the arts at a very young age. She began training in classical ballet when she was only three, as it was clear she had an affinity for dance. Throughout her youth, Madeline excelled in ballet while also growing as a visual artist. She was encouraged to work with all mediums, ultimately gravitating toward drawing in pen and painting with oil and acrylic. While maintaining a love for creating visual art, Madeline pursued a future in performing. After high school, she accepted a traineeship with Ballet West, in Salt Lake City, Utah where she started to dance at a professional level.
Madeline's career in the performing arts has since brought her to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she has been a resident dancer with Texture Contemporary Ballet for the last four seasons.
Balancing her time between the dance studio and her art studio, Madeline is excited to be focusing a larger part of her creative energy on visual artistic expression. While always being enthusiastically open to the occasional art project, in 2018, she began accepting more commissioned work by community members as well as from friends near and far. She is thrilled to be sharing her work with a growing audience!
just a note...
Art is the act of sharing a part of yourself with others - taking your thoughts, feelings, and memories and bringing them to life on a canvas, a page, or a stage. I feel privileged to have been exposed to so many art forms and encouraged to pursue those that resonate with me.
I've always gravitated toward impressionist paintings, the looser brush strokes and more everyday scenes. Masterpieces born from the impressionist movement have such life and feeling, able to evoke the time of year and the warmth of the sun on a particular afternoon. The lovely depictions of dancers by Degas, peaceful water lilies by Monet, and the richly textured florals and fields by Van Gogh have made a lasting impression on me. Literature is another valuable source of inspiration, as images from books by authors such as Lewis Carroll and JRR Tolkien often find their way into my sketches, commonly manifesting in mushrooms, wizards, and hobbit holes.