Kelly Curl

I record the landscape through paintings, drawings, photography, and mixed media. My masterful vision and craft of place manifest works of art highlighting landscape form, process, texture, and natural patterns at varying scales. Nature supports my artistry in photography, oil painting, Gouache painting, watercolour, and graphite and charcoal drawings. I am passionate about preserving cultural landscapes and ecological restoration.

I am an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape at Colorado State University. I joined the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture faculty as Assistant Professor in 2010. My vast skillset provides the opportunity to teach a variety of courses, including Digital Methods, Drawing the Landscape, Fundamentals of the Landscape Design Process, Environmental Analysis, Fundamentals of Ecology, Form and Expression in Garden Design, Advanced Site Engineering, Design and Nature, Ecology of Landscapes, Seminar of Designed Landscapes – Theory and Criticism, Comprehensive Landscape Design, Topics in Theory and Garden Design, and Native Plants in the Landscape. In 2015, I was awarded the Charles N. Shepardson Faculty Teaching Award at CSU.

I have exhibited at Colorado State University, BHA Design, and Morgan State University and currently donated work to The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) Eighteenth Annual Silent Auction to benefit TCLF’s education and advocacy initiatives. In Nadia Amoroso's book, Representing Landscapes- Hybrid, I published an essay titled Ideation of Landscape Representation. In 2021, I co-authored a book review of Wenk Associates: Working with Water, posted in the American Society of Landscape Architects online blog, THE DIRT, and ArchDaily, a weblog covering architectural news. In 2021, I received a Special Mention for my design competition submission at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. My submission was exhibited at the Responsive Cities Symposium – Design with Nature in Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, I won two design competition submissions with my CSU landscape architecture students for Backyard Casitas, nature play structures designed and built at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens in Santa Barbara, California.

I am originally from central Pennsylvania and reside in Fort Collins, Colorado. I earned a Bachelor of Science in Comprehensive Science and Mathematics from Villanova University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied under James Corner, Laurie Olin, Peter Latz, and the late Anuradha Mathur. While at the PENN Graduate School of Design, I was an ASLA Merit Finalist and a recipient of the Van Alen Traveling Fellowship and the Pennsylvania Garden Club Scholarship.

After receiving my MLA, I apprenticed at Peter Walker and Partners, Inc. for seven years in Berkeley, California. While in the office, my projects included the Cleveland Clinic, The National September 11 Memorial in New York City, San Jose International Airport, Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and the University of California – Merced, and many others.

Throughout my life, I fondly remember always drawing. As my career developed, I discovered various mediums and representational techniques that supported design ideas. Today, I continue this exploration in my teaching and research by recording nature and its processes with photography, drawing, and painting.