When Drue began discussing with me the idea of a portrait of Martin Luther King, I was immediately impressed by the intensity of her desire to absorb everything she could about the subject. It soon became clear that the painting was the end point of a long process. It is the distillation of all the knowledge and empathy acquired after she accepts a commission. I began by teaching her about King. When her painting was done, she taught me something new about him.
—PROF. CLAYBORNE CARSON, Founder and Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University
I offer my perspective as a lover of art, not as an art critic. Drue's work is characterized as an embodiment of rhythm, harmony, strength, and beauty. Her brush delivers a deep message of truth and connection with her world...joy, pain, love, and peace. And in all that she paints, Drue does not equivocate principle to gain popularity.
—HAROLD BOYD, Former Stanford Dean, Stanford BCSC Hall of Fame Inductee
A typical artist asks, "How can I embody this?" Drue asks, "How can I deeply understand this?" Drue researches, inquires, and probes ceaselessly until she has mastered the core and the nuances. From that mastery, the embodiment emerges from the brush, the flute, or the pen. Drue’s illustration for the cover of my book, Wired for Speech...
—PROF. CLIFFORD NASS, Professor at Stanford University, World-Renowned Expert on Human-Computer Interaction
Drue's Sumi-e technique uses partial outline and shading to create drawings that evoke a visual totality beyond the brushwork. The human visual system is sensitive to contrast more than absolutes of lightness or darkness, and it codes the world so that the brain fills in where borders are fragmentary. Drue grasps these properties intuitively to create complex images that resonate in simplicity.
—PROF. MICHAEL MARMOR, MD, Author of The Eye of The Artist, Collector of a Drue Kataoka Original