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Natalie Petrosky (b.1989, Akron, OH) is an artist living and working in Cleveland, OH. She received her M.F.A. in painting and drawing at the University of Tennessee (2016) and her B.F.A. in painting with an honors thesis in glass from the School of Art at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê×ÊÁÏ in Kent, OH (2012). Petrosky works primarily in painting and drawing, as well as in sculpture, video and glass. Her show "Sticks•Rocks•Leaves" opens in the KSU Downtown Gallery, 141 East Main Street, Kent, OH on June 7 from 5-7 p.m.

So, what is the driving force behind this new body of work for your show "Sticks•Rocks•Leaves" which will be opening soon at the KSU Downtown Gallery.

I’ve been a gardener as a job for the past six years and it has been long enough now that it’s starting to fold into my work. As a gardener, you are trying to make a thing look natural that is in fact something that highly manicured. So, the structures in paintings have become boxier and more like the plants and landscaping I work in. Further, the symmetry of the work is evolving to show these ethereal organic patterns that come from my deep almost guttural feelings but still reference the garden or could reference the garden because of the way of structured each composition.

How do you feel your experience as an undergraduate student in the School of Art at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê×ÊÁÏ helped influence where you are now?

Certain teachers really influenced me. For example, Charles Basham taught me everything I know about color. I remember one instance where I was trying to use a more inventive color pallet in his landscape painting class and I was painting with an inexpensive lemon-yellow and Chuck gave me one of his own tubes of lemon-yellow paint that was made by a more superior brand. This completely changed my trajectory as a painter and opened my eyes more to what paint could be. Also, Martin Ball’s collage class completely changed how I thought about painting. He would tell us to work to be more experimental with color by saying things like “There are millions of colors in print, in plastic and in the environment around us and that you just need to go find them."

You have committed to an artistic life full of experimentation and research beyond your academic experience. How nurturing have you found the community in northeast Ohio?

Interestingly, living in Cleveland, most of what I’ve been nurtured by always connects back to Kent. Whether it be with the people I work with or the artists I have known. The School of Art is the biggest school and biggest influence and so much of what is happening in the visual arts in the region stems out of it in some way.