Kenn Kotara

Born in Lake Charles, Louisian in 1960, Kenn Kotara had an early affinity for art. The son of an oil engineer, Kotara was encouraged to put his interest in art to practical use, and majored in architecture at Louisiana Tech University. During his fourth year of study he bacame interested in graphic design and established his own business designing t-shirts adn other items. In 1990, Kotara received his BA in Graphic Design. His first figure draweing class, which he took in 1988, proved pivotal and led to his studying fine arts on the graduate level, receiving his MFA from Louisiana Tech in 1993.

Kenn Kotara is one of North Carolina’s leading abstract painters. Working both in acrylics and pastels, Kotara explores and redefines the dialog between line and shape, color and tone, chaos and structure.

“Kenn Kotara offers up pastels like fire, somewhere in the hearth of one’s heart…Highly charged and deeply electric for all the close definition of art as natural essence gone fractal, the efforts of this work flow from one piece to the next in effortless movement,” said R.B. Strauss, "Painting the Picture," published in Around Philly.

Kotara now makes his home in the mountains of North Carolina, a part of the country that provides him with a continuing source of inspiration. He is also a Adjunct Professor at Asheville-Buncombe Community College. Kotara has works in the permanent collections of the Asheville Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum, Wachovia National Bank, and SAS Institute to name a few.

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