Kyle Dawn Hills

Award winning Artist/Photographer Kyle Dawn Hills received her Art Education degree from UW Eau Claire, taught art for two years while studying Interior Design. After receiving her design degree, she moved to California and began her twenty five year career in interior design.

As a result of taking photographs for her design projects, she began capturing the animals and flowers around her. Eventually making them into greeting cards and marketing them to specialty stores.

Unfortunately, the toxic effects of long term exposure to formaldehyde and other toxic chemical prevalent in her profession forced her to close her design firm and move to San Francisco to begin a four year journey of weekly shots for 60 of the 264 things her immune system was allergic to. It was during that time that a photograph she had taken of one of her cats inspired her to take a 30 year old student set of Prange watercolor paints and paint a picture of her beloved calico Peaches Anne. Fifty some paintings, many prints note cards and a book later these colorful naive paintings still bring joy to those who view them.

After returning to her home in Monterey, she was asked to document four artists as they silently protested the endangerment of the loss of the Elkhorn Slough Wetlands which borders the Monterey Bay near their homes. It was that experience that led her to begin landscape photography and her desire to paint the photographs she took. The photographs were published and used to educate the public, the politicians and stop the housing development and golf course expansion, thus saving the Wetlands.

Upon returning to her native Buffalo County she began photographing the Mississippi River which is a block from her home and its surrounding areas.
In 2011 she converted an existing building on her property into an art studio and it is there that she finally began painting the landscapes, using her photographs for inspiration in an impressionistic style. Awards and shows have followed as she continues to practice her art. In 2014 she opened her working studio to the public in a form of a galley where she show cases her photographs and paintings as well as sponsoring painting parties.