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K. Paulette

Kent Paulette is a self-taught artist who uses uninhibited, energetic brush strokes to create paintings that leap off the canvas, alive with color, texture, and movement.  Paulette lives in North Carolina where he paints in a studio overlooking the mountains.  He finds inspiration from the natural world that surrounds him and regularly hops into the mountain creek in his backyard to help rejuvenate his spirit and senses.

Read the new article about Kent Paulette in Our State Magazine’s October 2024 issue. Watch this new Video from May 2024 of Kent Paulette painting at the creek and being interviewed.

For K. Paulette, each painting is a gamble, a leap into the unknown, a wild ride of exploration and experimentation.  He paints to figure things out, not to achieve a specific result. Unexpected or unintended outcomes are welcome; they offer openings through which new possibilities can be glimpsed, imagined, and developed.  K Paulette works to exploit these opportunities, continually pushing himself and his paintings beyond the boundaries of habit and into the realm of chance.

“I try to give control over to a process that allows the painting to come to life organically.  The painting is able to occur as an uninterrupted event subject to the whims of chance.”

K. Paulette

“I try to apply the paint without hesitation or indecisiveness.   These measures help to fend off the frustration and anxiety that may arise from any lingering tendency to control the outcome.”

K. Paulette

K Paulette strives to insert the present moment into each brushstroke.  To make room for this spontaneity and to breathe life into his paintings, he has developed a whole range of special brushstrokes: Ninja Splats, Building Blocks, Scratching Thoughts, Windows, Kisses, Slaps, Screams, Spells, Jellyfish, Leafing, Whispers, and many more. 

“The canvas is a space where events happen, and the paint leaves a trace of those events.”

K. Paulette

Below is a video from May 2024 of Kent Paulette painting at the creek and being interviewed.

When Paulette is at work, paint flies everywhere; most of it, however, eventually finds its way onto the surface of the painting.  The process is intense and exhilarating and seldom fails to capture the attention of onlookers.  Prior to 2020, K. Paulette regularly painted live in front of spectators, allowing them to share in the fun and transforming his creative process from a private into a public activity.

The conceptual foundation for Paulette’s work can be traced to a number of different sources.  For example, he has drawn particular inspiration from the artist Brion Gysin, known for his pioneering work with the “cut-up” method and for his experiments with randomness and repetition.  Music – from classic rock and folk to Afrobeat and experimental electronica – has long played a central role in K Paulette’s creative process and in his understanding of form, pattern, and perception. He also draws insight and inspiration from a wide-ranging reading list that revolves around topics such as artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, theoretical physics, and advertising.

Paulette also emphasizes the important role played by his family.  From an early age, his parents encouraged and applauded his artistic efforts and have continued to do so now that he paints full time.  Creekside conversations with his brother Tate have also long been a source of inspiration for his art.  Paulette’s closest friend throughout his teens and twenties was his little dog named Corky.  You can see her little light shining in everything that Paulette creates.

Kent Paulette has paintings exhibited in Hickory, Boone, Banner Elk, Asheville, North Wilkesboro, Morganton, and Greensboro.  He’s always expanding and looking for new venues for long term exhibits across NC. Contact Kent Paulette if you have a venue where you’d like to display his art.

People can shop on this website with shipping to all 50 states and internationally. Paulette’s delivery assistants bring paintings to customers across NC.

As an Appalachian native, Kent Paulette knows the flora and fauna of Appalachia. Many scenes of the Appalachian wilderness have become the subject matter of his work, and Paulette brilliantly depicts everything from the beautiful displays of fall foliage to the soulful gaze of the fox or bear. His paintings are a display of joyful eccentricity, and Paulette has described himself as undertaking each painting with vigor and excitement, making quite a mess in the process, but ensuring that the marks land on the canvas just as they’re supposed to. Paulette doesn’t stop at Appalachian nature. He also extends his subject matter to coastal landscapes, figures, celebrity portraits, and more. Paulette has an ever-growing clientele base, and many of his paintings find their forever-homes in the luxury cabins of the NC High Country. 

Paulette marches to the beat of his own drum, and his unique style shines through his work.  His paintings diverge from the often tightly-bound “rules” surrounding art, and he allows whimsy and abstraction to give rise to recognizable form in his paintings. Even so, Paulette has an adept understanding of the principles of art, and his applications of color—including color contrast, color harmony, and color temperature—are careful and discerning. The joy that Paulette pours into his work can be seen through his paintings, and each piece is truly one of a kind. 

Kent Paulette personally donated and gifted over 650 Signed Canvas Giclées to nurses and other employees of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System (now UNC Health Appalachian) and other essential employees in the area during the pandemic.  They picked out their favorite from a list of his paintings. He came up with the idea as a way to say “Thank you!” for everything they do for our community.

The Wall Street Journal featured Paulette’s painting of Stevie Nicks in their article about gated communities. The photo shows it hanging in the home of one of his collectors in Hilton Head. They also commissioned his Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, and Hotel California original paintings which hang next to Stevie in their theater room.

Notable Neighbor Kent Paulette: There’s a splash of nature in each of his paintings

Before Kent Paulette paints, he wades into the creek in his backyard. He wiggles his toes in the mud and puts his face in the water no matter the temperature, then scoops up a bucket of creek water to use in his paintings.

“I come back to my studio with mud between my toes and feeling very connected with nature,” Paulette said.

Paulette lives in Watauga County now, but his roots are firmly in Hickory, where he was born and raised.

Paulette started out young as an artist, he said. In the 1980s, he and his brother Tate sold their artwork on the street at their home on Seventh Street in Hickory. He calls it his first art show.

Paulette reflects fondly on Hickory. It’s where he got a taste of nature playing in the creek at Glenn C. Hilton Jr. Memorial Park and biking the neighborhood, he said. It’s also where he got his first art lessons with local teachers and in school.

“I took art lessons in the neighborhood … which helped inspire my creativity at an early age,” he said.

Paulette also learned business savvy on the streets of Hickory as a paperboy for the Hickory Daily Record, he said.

Paulette first hung his paintings in Drip’s Coffeehouse in 2002, a few years after graduating from high school. For years he worked hard to make and sell art. He often struggled, he said.

“I learned a lot while being a paperboy that has helped me run my business as an artist,” he said. “I learned how to keep track of and collect money and talk with customers. My paperboy job was seven days a week, so even if I wanted to hang out with friends after school or it was raining, I still had to go deliver papers. That taught me discipline and a strong dedication that helps me work hard and finish a painting even when it seems like there’s no end in sight.”

“My parents, Janet and Richard Paulette, have always been my biggest supporters, and they helped me make it through those early years when I didn’t sell very much of my artwork,” he said.

In 2007, he moved to Powder Horn Mountain in Watauga County. In 2012, he started selling his work in Banner Elk. That’s when business started picking up, he said.

Now, he has collectors who buy dozens of his paintings to fill their homes. He has buyers around the country and world, including country music star Eric Church, Paulette said.

With his success, Paulette tries to give back, he said. He donates his work to nonprofits, most recently to Dream on 3, a foundation that makes sports dreams come true for children with chronic illnesses, disabilities or life-altering conditions. The painting, called “Charlotte Dreams,” depicts a sunrise over Charlotte. At its Dream Gala, Paulette’s painting sold for $11,000, which went to the nonprofit.

What compelled you to create this painting and sell it at the Dream Gala?

“I donated my ‘Charlotte Dreams’ painting to Dream on 3 because I think they’re really helping to make dreams come true and bring joy and magic to the Dream Kids’ lives. I also donate paintings to nonprofits to hang in spaces where the general public can see my work in person.

“I was inspired by the mountain sunrise outside my studio as I was painting ‘Charlotte Dreams.’ I have fond memories of visiting Charlotte often to go to Discovery Place, Charlotte Hornets games and the Neighborhood Theatre. I brought those warm memories along with a bit of nature to this portrait of the Queen City.”

What motivates you as an artist?

“I paint as a way to release energy and express emotions. I’m inspired by nature and by music. Musicians’ lyrics, energy and passion have had a major impact on my artwork.

“In addition to musicians, some of my other greatest teachers were the poets from the Beat Generation. Allen Ginsberg’s advice in his poem ‘After Lalon,’ ‘Don’t get entangled with possessions,’ and ideas like that have really stuck with me throughout the years.”

When are you happiest?

“I’m happiest when floating in a tube in the creek in the sunshine, with a cool mist blowing over me from a nearby waterfall. Or when l’m in my hammock on my deck in the treetops and a bobcat comes to visit and listens to bluegrass music with me for several hours as it naps below my deck. Or when I’m painting at my home studio and a deer walks by to see what I’m up to. Or when I’m hiking with my parents and brother to the creek on a sunny day.”

My mom teaches us childlike joy and curiosity. We splash in the creek and find magic wonder in these woods. She filled our home with music. Now we sing songs to the animals and dance like there’s music in our blood. She grows beautiful gardens and we see how many wildflowers we can spot on our walks. She teaches us about fairness and how to forgive. She teaches us not to worry too much about what other people think. We let our freak flag fly. She teaches us kindness and to always care about how other people feel. We give away our love freely. She teaches us about determination. We keep walking up that sledding hill and find a way to finish the painting or the dissertation. She teaches us how to fly! — Mother’s Day card written by Kent Paulette for his mom

My dad teaches us childlike silliness and laughter. He giggles and we remember to smile. He filled our home with song. Now we dance to that rock’n’roll music and can’t help but sing along with wild exuberance. He teaches us warmth and compassion. We remember to be human in this age of the machine. He teaches us to contemplate the facts and the courage it takes to change our mind. He’s steady and he teaches us about persistence. He teaches us a strong work ethic and how to focus. But he also teaches us about prioritizing family over work. He was there to teach us how to throw a baseball and also in the stands cheering us along. He teaches us creative thinking and that’s something we use everyday in our art and archaeology. Most of all, he teaches us how to let our little love light shine! — Father’s Day card written by Kent Paulette for his dad

Collaboration’ with Mother Nature
Rain, wind help create 10-foot bear painting that Hickory native donates to Grandfather Mountain museum

Artist and Hickory native Kent Paulette recently donated a large bear painting to Grandfather Mountain. It hangs permanently on the wall at Grandfather Mountain above the entrance to the newly redesigned Nature Museum at The Wilson Center for Nature Discovery.

The project has been in the works since 2019, when Paulette first proposed the idea of making and donating an original painting of a bear for Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. He met with Jesse Pope and Lesley Platek, and they discussed the upcoming large expansion of the Nature Museum and possible spots for the painting to hang. It is the biggest painting Paulette had ever done at 10 feet wide and 7½ feet tall.

Paulette on his inspiration for the painting:
“Grandfather Mountain is such a special place to me. This painting was inspired by my visits to the wildlife habitats and seeing the bears there. I collected water from a waterfall at Grandfather Mountain and mixed the water directly with paint to stain the canvas with my Creek Washes. A bear came to visit my home studio as I was working on this painting outside on my deck. I think it was coming to see the painting because I hadn’t seen a bear there in three years.

I hiked down to the creek in my backyard early in the morning before I started this painting. I stuck my face in the creek and also collected a few bottles of the creek water to mix in with the paint along with the water from Grandfather Mountain.”

“On my hike, I went to a special tree and, in my deepest voice, I spoke the words “Ancient Sycamooooore” into its hollow base. Four crows called out and led me to my destination, Corky Wok Rock. White laurel flowers hung over the creek, and I was greeted by songbirds. As I entered the passageway through large boulders, I spotted beautiful pink laurel flowers on the other side of the creek. After I was finished collecting water, the crows and a hummingbird led me back home to my studio, where I could hear the rushing water from the creek below.”

“I painted outside on my deck in May 2022 during a week of extremely heavy rains. The rain water helped keep the canvas wet as I was painting my Creek Washes, so the colors were able to continue to flow together instead of drying as I went. It was a collaboration with the rain and wind. The wind blew the rain randomly on me and kept me on my toes. It also blew my tarp, which grabbed paint from one spot on the painting and painted it on the canvas in another spot. Rain dripped down and hit the volume controls on my speakers, causing my music to suddenly raise loudly in volume. It’s as if the rain wanted to emphasize certain lyrics and sections of songs.”

“A “Grandfather” Long Legs was also my collaborator. It hung out on the front of the canvas the entire time I was working on the painting. Later I found sunflower seeds in the back corner of the canvas, so I think I had another little mouse or chipmunk helper too. After I finished, more animals came by to see the painting, including a rattlesnake and a mama bunny rabbit.”

“I used a huge palette knife to paint the thick texture and a brush to paint my Creek Washes and the geometric shapes. As I was working on the painting, I wore clothes that I inherited from my grandfather, Harold Sewell. I used T-shirts from my childhood to wipe paint from the canvas and clean my tools. One of the rain tarps I used was our old, yellow Slip ’N Slide from when I was a kid, which brought back happy memories of summertime with my family.”

“The painting was covering the sliding glass door in my bedroom, so each morning I’d wake up and see huge bear eyes looking at me. The sunrise was shining through the canvas, and I could see the bear even though I was looking at the back of the painting. The painting is so big that it could also be seen from another hilltop half a mile away.”

Contact Kent Paulette if you’d like to receive free cards to give out in your community anywhere across the U.S.

Erin Brockovich at Grandfather Mountain with Kent Paulette’s painting that he donated to The Women’s Fund of the Blue Ridge. This original painting is 6 feet tall and it was auctioned at one of their fundraisers. Their mission is to create positive change for women and girls in the High Country through collective giving.

Kent Paulette gave 55 of his small Signed Canvas Giclées to the firefighters and others workers in the 10 organizations who responded to the 2023 wild fire in his neighborhood.

“The fall colors, especially the reds, at my home studio in Powder Horn Mountain this year were so amazing!  On the morning that I started Chroma Thrills on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I waded through Laurel Creek to collect a bucket of creek water, and since it was raining, I also set out a bucket to collect rainwater.  I may have been soaking wet after that, but it’s a good way to get connected to nature right before I begin a painting.  I mixed the rain water with the acrylic paint for the sky and I used creek water for all the trees.”

Kent Paulette

“I prepared for my Wild is the Wind painting with about fifteen hours of solo sledding in the woods here at Powder Horn Mountain during the recent snow storm.  On the morning that I started the painting, I waded through Laurel Creek barefooted and grabbed handfuls of snow from its banks. I mixed it with the acrylic paint to get those snowy washes that stain the canvas. As the snow outside melted over the next few days, I switched to using creek water and then finished with rain water.”

K. Paulette (a.k.a. Derfla)

View Kent Paulette’s paintings at at various showrooms in Banner Elk, NC.

As the sun rises over Powder Horn Mountain artist Kent Paulette quietly walks to the creek and steps in. “It can be snowing or raining, doesn’t much matter,” he explains. “I need to be there, I walk in the water, wet my hands, my face and I fill a bucket to bring back.”

Nature is Paulette’s most influential muse. After this morning ritual he heads up to his deck where he paints barefoot listening to birds, feeling the breeze and responding to his environment. The bucket of water? That almost-holy creek goes into the art itself providing the washes and drips that begin each of his paintings.

For full immersion with the art of Kent Paulette dine at Sorrento’s Italian Bistro or Chef’s Table at Sorrento’s in downtown Banner Elk. Walls are filled with Paulette’s huge, colorful work recognizable by geometric designs and high energy motion. All teased from just three colors. As the eye moves from piece to piece two juxtaposed subjects reveal: nature and music personalities. Move in closer and enjoy the brushstroke. Look for patterns and rhythm. Back up and check your memory bank, the art often transports the viewer.

This is all by design. Paulette is an honest painter. He puts it out there. What he is thinking, how he feels, what he struggles with…it’s all on the canvas. And he has a reverential respect for the process. When he invites interaction while painting in public he listens. “I realize that people bring their own stories to my work,” he explains. “There is a reason they call for a color or decide it is finished. This becomes integral to the piece.” Paulette has even invited bystanders to pick up the brush. “I want them to feel it,” he continues. “I am learning to give up the expectation of a specific ending and see where the process takes us. I want that art interaction to be a positive experience.” Random marks by viewers are as precious as that creek water to his work.

Still a young man at 37, Paulette has been finding his artistic path since he was a child growing up in Hickory. He counts supportive parents and “a neighborhood lady that gave art lessons” as early enablers of his career path. He purposely avoided formal art education other than the basics taught at high school. “I needed to find my own style,” he says, “I wanted the challenge of self-teaching to determine where I went.”

So where does a self-taught artist turn for inspiration? “Music and nature,” he answers. And suddenly Frank Sinatra’s portrait hanging next to a gigantic blue bear makes sense. Honest.

The artist elaborates, “Music always inspired me, moved me. If I paint indoors I have something on. It might be experimental-electro or bluegrass but the rhythms, transitions and surprises are all informative.” He mentions patterns and uses that word again talking about earth influences. One begins to understand that music and nature offer different sides of the same coin of inspiration.

Paulette knows he could be content painting alone on his mountain, listening to his creek and responding to the flow of Mother Nature. But he also purposely sets up challenges that cause him to deal with new situations. “That’s growth,” he says, “it forces you to abandon control, to respond instead to the now.”

So six years ago when Sorrento’s owner Angelo Accetturo offered Paulette studio space near the restaurant and walls on which to hang, the artist started a new venture: Studio 140.

“It’s a different vibe,” he admits, but one he clearly enjoys. Now it is not the sound of the creek but the energy of the crowd that impacts the canvas. “I let them in, answer questions, respond to their comments. It is entirely different than working with the crickets and birds.” And whether he knows it or not he becomes a pied-piper for painting, not just with children who stare fascinated as he slings paint, but with adults who may have had an urge to play with color only to abandon it. Paulette shares his message that the outcome doesn’t have to be worth a frame to be worth doing…the process has value.

Paulette is now reaping the fruits of honest dedication via increasing sales and prices. He’s at the Banner Elk Winery regularly repainting the mantelpiece elk as it sells off the wall and he just shipped a bear off to Paris. While he believes in the magic of original art he has also made giclees available so that smaller sizes become affordable in various price points. Spend some time at www.KentPaulette.com and his philosophy of art, if not life, will become evident. It’s a vibe you will want more of.

This website for Kent Paulette, aka Derfla, was formally located at www.derfla.tv and www.derflapaintings.com

“Meeting Kent Paulette for the first time, it would be forgivable to underappreciate the vitality and vigor of his work and Kent himself. Just a little way (no pavement here) from his Powderhorn Mtn. home, Kent looks…well, how your mother thinks an artist should look. With his long hair, contagious laugh, and comfortable clothes, Kent wants all of his future interviews to be conducted “with his feet in the creek” (prounced “crick”), and sure enough, Laurel Creek bubbles joyfully over his bare feet as we chat.

He’s comfortable here. But where comfort and ease would be a bastion of mediocrity for someone with less vision and vitality, Kent has taken the simple and joyful beauty of the paradisaic northwestern North Carolina highlands and used it to inform his artwork with an enthusiasm that is undeniable. The energy that informs his paintings makes perfect sense, against all odds, perhaps, after discussing his work and his life with him.

Paulette’s influences are as delightfully varied as the painter himself. From his elementary and high school art teachers , (Ms. Marvin and Ms. Verbist) from his hometown of Hickory, Kent draws on other artists and his love of art, be it literature, music, or dance. Beat poet and author William S. Burroughs’ collaborations with Brion Gyson are seen in his paintings where geometry is teased and then abandoned.

There are shades of Blue Period Picasso and even Cubism (which was a movement based around showing all three dimensions at once on a two-dimensional surface). Music and musicians are common subjects in his work, from an aggressively diagonally portrayed guitar-wielding Jimi Hendrix to a passive and subdued Frank Sinatra shown in reflective, almost contemplative cool blues.

But whether it’s a geometrically rendered Appalachian landscape or portrait of local wildlife or a vivid Janis Joplin, Paulette has carved a unique style that is unmistakably his own. Looking at the body of his work, there are fun, unique similarities between apparently opposite subjects such as “The Wild Wolf” and “Frank Sinatra”.

How can such different subjects evoke such similar emotions? As the saying goes, it’s the singer, not the song. It’s the inception moment, the genesis of creation that distinguishes his projects. And he takes the creek where he half-jokingly insists all future interviews be held “with his feet in the creek” with him. Literally. When he paints in front of an audience in Banner Elk on Saturday’s, (“I call that the big city. I mean compared to here…”) he brings the creek with him. In a bottle. He uses the creek to stain the canvas where he creates. He describes the physical creation of his work in almost musical terms: there are “whispers, which are light, almost dry brush strokes” and “ninja splats, where I stand back and throw the paint and it makes a ‘splat’”.

Kent Paulette’s unique vision, inspired from the creek that carves its unique path from his Northwest North Carolina home, touches something vital and beautiful that we can all see, and that he can show us. See for yourself at KentPaulette.com, and, if you have any questions, be ready to get your feet wet.”