CATHERINE BATES

ARTIST STATEMENT

IT’S IN THE AIR AT THE END OF THE BRUSH!
I love sensual, directly applied pigments, and a feeling of light in the air. I also love movement, abstracted organization, the Icarus myth (my symbol of environmental overreach), and luscious colours on lightly touched surfaces. It’s all there in the colour in the air at the end of the brush!
Landscapes, still lifes, and human models become changed bya process of imaginative memory. When working outside, I often place myself at a distance from the subject being painted, so that it does not dictate to me. In the studio, still lifes are set up or
models are posed, used as references for the first wonderful intuitive feeling.
With the doomsday clock advancing because of environmental blunders and worldwide wars, I believe it is imperative tochange, to work harder for a world of improved quality and dignity. Beauty, however one defines this complicated word in our complicated world, is a reality to create and celebrate; it gives us a shock of recognition. It is not an evasion of current events and actually may be more of an antidote; nor is it an aim for transcendence, which has a long history in art; it is a way of being fully in the present, in the faith that there will continue to be a future. Aiming for beauty is a survival belief!

At the end of every year, Catherine Bates collates a selection of her journal entries into a letter. To read the latest edition of Catherine's end-of-year letter, click below to download a pdf version.

Download 2006 letter (PDF)