ARTIST STATEMENT From Turner to Monet and Ivon Hitchens to Emily Car and Tom Thomson, landscape has served as a source of inspiration and exploration for artists throughout the centuries. This fascination with landscape; pictorially, lyrically and conceptually has proved to be a deep well of creative stimulus to draw from. As a contemporary landscape painter Catharine considers nature as a way to emotionally connect to the viewer with the truth of human experience. Her painting takes up the notion of landscape as a metaphor allowing her to make an artistic sense of the world by making marks and exploring colour in a post-impressionist/expressionist and abstract way akin to musical notes. Catharine paints on canvas and board using oil, watercolour and mixed media. While she has a firm studio practice, she equally paints plein air and recently has travelled to remote areas such as northwestern Ontario, rural Quebec, Newfoundland and Cornwall, UK. Her paintings take on an ephemeral lightness between the layers of pigments casting and bouncing light to provide jewel like colours on the backdrop of a sky, sea, lake or woods. These works access the imaginings of both a wild and nurtured existence. As philosopher/artist, Dr. Ed Winters writes “Only through art can we see ourselves as belonging in a world in which these imaginary empathies tell ‘truths’ about our condition. Being called to paint is a form of witness. The observation of an artist like Catharine, calls upon a developed sensitivity. Being imaginary, it develops a view onto the world. This, I am sure, is what is historically meant by an ‘artist’s vision’”.

Catharine Somerville

@catharinesomervillewilson-art/instagram

https://www.picuki.com/profile/catharinesomervillewilson_art

‪www.catharinesomerville.com‬

Schomberg Street Gallery