CAT CROXFORD
BIO
I was born into an artistic family and remember drawing and painting as soon as I could hold a felt tip pen. My drawings were places I wanted to be, imagined landscapes of hills and fences, towering fluffy trees and colourful flowers.
Growing up surrounded by the beautiful English countryside, play and adventure always involved going into ‘the woods’, ancient woods with natural hideouts, dark places, kingdoms and fairylands, all places with an ambiguous sense of time.
My artistic practice had started as a portraitist, together with teaching art at my family’s studio. Then about 5 years ago, a life changing event caused me to evaluate my subject matter and I began to explore what had always made me happy as a child. The woods still held the same allure, but with the perspective of an adult, discovering memories, capturing moments, with a better understanding of the complex network of trees and fungus that create a living breathing time-rich space. With each season the stories change as the light and colours evolve and we witness nature moving through its eternal circle.
All of my
paintings are inspired by real places in and around the South of England, I wander through the woods taking photos and absorbing the smells and sounds. Then back at my studio I paint the story, the place, starting with a black canvas over which I layer acrylic, slowing building contrasts, shapes and light with distinctive brushmarks.
With this technique the experience of the painting changes as you move closer to the surface of the canvas and back out again, akin to zooming into a pixelated image, creating further compositions within the construction of marks. My ambition and reward is to create art to stimulate sensations and memories in other people, inviting you to step into the painting and stay there a while.
My full time practice allows me to have two studios, one in Mapledurham, South Oxfordshire (near Reading) where I can also be found running painting courses and one just north of Buckingham, Buckinghamshire. Studio visits are always enjoyed – just contact me to make an appointment.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
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Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, with Clifton Fine Art
21 - 24 October 2021
RECENT EXHIBITIONS 2021
Open Studios Exhibition at Proteus Creation Space, Basingstoke
Group Exhibition
21st-29th September 2021
