Catherine Richardson

Artist Statement:

My artwork is a compilation of inquiry into the natural world and the elementary substance of life as it cycles with death. Exploring place, walking a given landscape allows for an exchange, inspiration and inquiry which inevitably collaborates with my imagination. Being alive is an amazing state of grace and my art making provides inroads to develpoing and extending the senses.

Journaling, collecting, and documenting are some of the tools I use while observing the patterns manifested by life’s intent on survival. Working in this way illuminates the tenuously sensual threads of interdependency between human nature and the natural world; the edges where civilized and the untamed interweave.

I use cement with polymers to build a very tough and resistant ground for a painting that can define interesting marks and can be sanded and worked to create smooth, sculptural surfaces. I layer with paint and mixed media, stencils, masking and digital manipulated imagery and effects.. There is a narative element to my work sugesting metaphor and lore of the land, buried secrets and ancient cultural agreements.

Art making captivates me with fascinating dialogue within its reflections on the mysteries of thought, life and death, untamed landscape etc. The work can tap into the collective consciousness and communicate on more levels than we typically are used to.
My aim is to master my craft while pursuing experimental mark making. The scope of my work can range from paintings and drawings that are born in the studio to projects that are about documenting a place.

Catherine grew up near the Moors and Dales of northern England and attended Art College in London for her BFA. The natural world has always provided poetic intrigue and she has used painting, sculptural installations and drawings as a platform to explore various ways of communicating this phenomenology.. After graduating with an MFA from John F Kennedy’s Arts and Consciousness in Berkeley, California, Catherine was awarded the Sonoma County Emerging Artist Award and twice nominated for the prestigious Eureka Fellowship.  Residencies include Kala in Berkeley CA. and upcoming at the Badé Museum Berkeley CA.
Recent Exhibitions include a solo show at Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California; Berkeley City College,Berkeley California; Quicksilver Gallery Forestville, CA. Hammerfriar Gallery, Healdsburg, California; Solo Show and residencey at Doug Adams Gallery and Pacific Theological Union, Berkeley California. Group shows at Doug Adams Gallery at Badé Museum, Berkeley, CA. ArtSpace 404, Santa Rosa, CA. Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA.; Thoreau Center, Presidio, SF, CA. She is represented by Hammerfriar gallery Healdsburg, CA