PRINCETON NJ Announcement

The Present Day Club in Princeton Presents Paintings by Katharine Dufault

The Present Day Club in Princeton presents Before the Rain, an exhibition of recent landscape paintings by Katharine Dufault that evokes the quiet, charged moments in nature just before a change in weather - when the air grows still and the land seems to hold its breath. Inspired by mountains, forests, and shifting seasons encountered on daily walks, the paintings explore the subtle atmosphere of landscape at the edge of transformation.

Working in oil, Dufault approaches painting as both meditation and exploration. Broad, colorful gestures of thinned paint move across the surface alongside finely observed details, creating landscapes that feel at once expansive and intimate. While rooted in real places, the paintings drift between direct experience and recollection, capturing the emotional atmosphere of wild landscapes rather than specific locations.

“I’m interested in the space between observation and memory,” says Dufault. “The paintings begin with landscapes I’ve seen and experienced, but they evolve through gesture and layering until they become something more atmospheric and interior.”

The works range in scale up to 40 × 30 inches, allowing space for both gestural movement and delicate detail. Layers of thinned paint are washed and brushed onto the surface, and at times sanded back, revealing subtle shifts of light and texture that echo the rhythms of the natural world.

With their luminous surfaces and quiet intensity, the paintings invite viewers to pause and enter a contemplative space shaped by the natural landscape.

The title Before the Rain recalls the artist’s childhood in England, where the weather often shaped daily life and a walk “before the rain” was a familiar phrase. The idea of that brief pause before a change in weather resonates with the atmosphere of the paintings.

A public opening reception will be held on Friday, March 27, from 5–7 pm, and all are welcome.

Exhibition Dates: March 27 – May 10, 2026?

Location: The Present Day Club, Princeton, New Jersey?

Opening Reception: Friday, March 27, 5–7 pm (Public Welcome)

Artist Bio

Katharine Dufault is a British-born, New York Times–reviewed artist, curator, and educator. A multimedia painter working in oils, watercolor, encaustic, and printmaking, her practice explores landscape, memory, and the transformative potential of paint. She earned her degree in painting and literature from Columbia University, graduating with honors, following earlier studies in visual arts, graphic design, and photography at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England.

Dufault has exhibited extensively in New York City, Hudson, Westchester County, the Berkshires, Boston, Connecticut, Ohio, and Cambridge, England. Her work is held in numerous corporate and private collections.

In addition to her studio practice, Dufault has curated more than a dozen exhibitions across New York and New England, advised nonprofit arts organizations, served on visual arts panels, and juried awards. In 2023, she joined the board of the Millay Arts Residency in Austerlitz, New York.

She lives and works in southern Berkshire County, Massachusetts.