Inside the Creative World of Artist Paula Kagan

Paula Kagan’s journey to the Hudson Valley is as layered and thoughtful as her art. From her early days sketching human skeletons and wandering the halls of the Detroit Institute of Arts to years spent balancing motherhood, academia, and a deep yearning to create, Paula has always followed a quiet pull toward expression. After decades in Chicago and time on the Pacific coast, she found her way to a mountaintop home in Bearsville, where the view feels like a living canvas.

Now working full-time as an artist, she primarily paints in oils, returning again and again to the human figure—not to capture a likeness, but to listen, to witness, and to let each piece unfold. Her studio and work are spaces of creative risk and reflection, where philosophy, social justice, compassion, and connection to the natural world echo through her brushstrokes.

With a lifelong commitment to uncovering what’s often left unsaid, Paula paints in the quiet company of imagined figures, ancient questions, and the wild conversation of the landscape around her. A former professor and longtime advocate for justice, she doesn’t separate the mind from the hand, or the personal from the political. Her paintings—layered, intuitive, and often figural—aren’t about finding answers, but about being fully present: a way of listening to what wants to emerge. In her Bearsville studio, surrounded by forest and the hum of wild things, Paula has found not just a return to art, but a return to herself.

Want to know more? Read our Exclusive Interview…

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INSIDE+OUT: Where are you originally from, and how did you wind up in the Hudson Valley?

Paula Kagan: Born and raised in the city of Detroit. My favorite place in Detroit was the Detroit Institute of Arts, where I spent many days taking the Woodward Avenue bus to walk around the galleries and hang out in Kresge Court under the Diego Rivera murals. After almost a decade in Vancouver, British Columbia and 35 years in Chicago, I sought a natural environment for inspiration and room to practice art. My daughter lives in Brooklyn, not far from where my mother was born and my husband, Howard, is a New Yorker, so I looked east toward the Hudson Valley. My son was in Ithaca at the time. I felt at home and fell in love with the area during our first summer in Phoenicia in 2011. After a few half-time years, door-to-door in 12 hours, we’ve lived here full-time in Accord and Bearsville. We live almost at the top of spectacular Mt. Guardian, with a view that inspires me, breaks my heart, and makes me grateful every day. 

What inspired you to become an artist, and what was your journey?

Paula Kagan: My original impulse growing up was to draw. I drew the human skeleton obsessively! Although there was not a single piece of art in our home, my parents had these six books on the best-known artists of impressionism. I was fascinated. I went to college in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where I completed a few years of a BFA, primarily interested in figurative sculpture. I moved to Vancouver, BC, for most of the 70s and made jewelry in a loft collective and was admitted to the Vancouver School of Art, now Emily Carr. I attempted to keep up an art practice while a waitress, a janitor, and a commercial salmon fisherman, but practicalities drove me to complete a BSN at the University of British Columbia. I worked in psychiatry, community health, and women’s health, completed a PhD, and spent 20 years as a tenured professor while I raised my children in Chicago.

My academic work focused on philosophical and theoretical concepts that help frame what healthcare is and how to do it better. My research on the concept of feeling listened to underpins the importance of freedom and justice not only in healthcare but also in all human activities, including the arts. I made the case for a significant connection between documentary filmmaking and exposing and lifting silenced voices throughout the health sciences and arts. Understanding that people just want to be listened to is the path toward alleviating suffering, which should be the goal in healthcare interactions. To that end, my scholarship and teaching in nursing and women’s and gender studies were grounded in social justice frameworks.

As you might imagine, the journey back to art was arduous, but I came out the other side to the Hudson Valley. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland. While my time in philosophical and analytical endeavors was a wonderland and creative, I very much wanted to be both less urban and more artistic. I appreciate our community of artists, my deep friendships with artists here, and our incredible institutions and opportunities in the Hudson Valley. I am grateful for my studio and ability to sustain a full-time art practice.

Your art is expressed through painting, printmaking, and collage. Do you have a favorite medium, and do they differ from each other in terms of subject matter?

Paula Kagan: I am an oil painter primarily. I very much like printmaking and, lately, creating woodcuts. But, I do believe painting is mainly how my exploration is manifested. While I also work abstractly, I find that I move toward figurative works most of the time, and that is what I am currently developing. I present figures in paintings or drawings, often making many iterations of a painting or sketch through various printmaking processes as well.

Tell us about your creative process.

Paula Kagan: I begin and end with the human figure, the person. I don’t know who they are, but I listen and watch and follow the painting. I layer, adding and taking away. Eventually, I stop. Some works take less than 30 minutes – usually sketches or fast-drying acrylic painting drawings. However, most oil paintings take several weeks or months as they dry, and I rework them until I somehow know there is closure. I usually get in the studio, put on music, and sweep the floor, and by the time I’m finished, I’ve picked up a brush and modified the work that is hanging on the wall. While working on larger pieces, I also maintain a wall of 20-25 5×7 single-figure portrait oil paintings, rotating those out when finished. I gesso boards or paper if I’m stuck and occasionally sit and do a collage. When there is room on the painting walls, I’ll put up a new ground. I rarely paint with a theme in mind. It’s just what you see, and the evocations and meanings are subjective, as well as the purview of the observer. While sketches are based on what I observe, most figures in paintings thus far are imagined. A few have come from drawings done in figure drawing studios at Woodstock School of Art. This year, I plan to begin painting the people I know. 

You have a PhD. How does philosophy inform your art?

Paula Kagan: In the same way, philosophy informs any practice. It provides a viewpoint, a framework, and a belief in how things are in the world, our place in that world, and the meanings we create. It guides methods and movement. My worldview is strongly influenced by existential phenomenology, American Pragmatism, and critical feminism, particularly by Black feminist scholars. Combined, these frameworks emphasize the connectivity of people and things, mutuality, indivisibility, fairness, and equity, as well as the significance of the lived experience. I’m a fan of physics, Albert Einstein, and David Bohm, and I have an appreciation of mystery, magic, and things we do not quite understand. Perhaps these ideas emerge in my paintings and drawings as evocations of alienation, collectivity, and the search for answers. However, I do not think of any of this as I approach the work. I do not dictate a theme or image. I am only a receiver in which the always-changing mutual process between canvas, materials, and emergent imagery guides my next move. 

What are the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of creating your art? 

Paula Kagan: Just doing it is extremely challenging and, at times, difficult. I force myself into the studio sometimes and those can turn out to be very productive days. I never know what I’m doing, and I have to force myself to take risks and destroy the image from yesterday in order to make most pieces better and, frankly, less pretty. However, sometimes, the work emerges with an aesthetic beauty that is intrinsic to the piece. I keep that. The most rewarding aspect is completing work, standing back and liking what I’ve done. I also feel gratified when my friends and colleagues appreciate what I do.

Tell us more about your involvement with the Woodstock School of Art. 

Paula Kagan:  Woodstock School of Art holds special significance for me because it was where I began to take classes in the Hudson Valley. I began with figure drawing, painting, and figurative sculpture. Huge shout-outs to those I’ve repeatedly studied, including Les Castellanos, Keith Gunderson, and Tricia Cline, and to the incredible Kate McGloughlin in printmaking. David Hornung provided me with a trove of knowledge in color theory, design fundamentals and collage. I also cherish those who have mentored me in abstraction, such as Melanie Delgado and Donald Elder. The entire school is astonishing. So many opportunities to learn from established professional artists. The administration and staff also provide a welcoming, encouraging, and respectful environment. It’s the core of my community and most friendships.

What makes living in the Hudson Valley special for you?  

Paula Kagan:  Obviously, the Woodstock School of Art. The variety of towns and nature preserves within a short drive or walk. An abundance of art and music. Just the total creative environment intrinsic to the area makes it desirable. Our home and the beauty that surrounds us make me want to be outside all the time, walking around, gardening, listening to the natural world, and watching the animals, birds, and insects. I love driving with nobody in front of me or behind me. There’s a sense of freedom and beauty. Quieter and less pretentious than the cities I’ve lived in. 

What local businesses do you rely on to be successful?

Paula Kagan: Unfortunately, not many. Michael’s in Kingston and Catskill Art Supply. Both are extremely limited.

What is missing in the area that you wish we had?

Paula Kagan: Blicks Art Supply or Jerry’s Artarama

What are some of your favorite places in the Hudson Valley?

Paula Kagan: The Colony Woodstock for food and music. Levon Helm’s. Nana’s Cafe in Woodstock. Cucina and Miss Lucy’s in Saugerties. Bread Alone is a favorite. The Old Dutch Church in Kingston for a variety of events. The Midtown Kingston Arts District for their mission of inclusivity, honoring diversity, and providing space and events for arts programming, youth workforce training and community events. Galleries such as Lockwood, Queen of Rogues, Elena Zang, and Kingston Social, just to name a few. I love the Lace Mill and Shirt Factory for music events – mostly jazz on Sunday afternoons.

Who or what inspires you personally?

Paula Kagan: All the creatives who are doing their art extend their vision and voice. Anyone working for equity, justice, and fairness toward the goal of bettering society. 

Tell us something about yourself that people would be surprised to know.

Paula Kagan: I’m a big Buffy fan. 

What do you do for fun? What are some of your favorite ways to unwind and unplug when you are not working?

Paula Kagan: I watch TV series – a lot. I have a gorgeous vegetable garden that I seem to be very good at, and I grow an abundance of food, most of which I give away! I also am a big fan of doing nothing. I love to sit outside with Valerie, my dog, and listen to the sounds of frogs, birds, crickets and especially coyotes. We watch our deer, groundhogs and bears as they go about their lives so close to ours. I collect nothing and have no hobbies. I swim and if I’m anywhere flat, I’ll ride a bike.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be? 

Paula Kagan: Well, I’d like two, please. One is the power to know when a painting is finished. The other, maybe a more important power, would be the power to repair the world. I know that’s sorta cliche, but…

What is your current state of mind? 

Paula Kagan: Focus on doing the art. Focus on the suffering of others. Focus on justice.

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Photos courtesy of Paula Kagan

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