Cathryn graduated in Fine Arts at Queen's University in 1977, and continued to study at the Banff School of Fine Arts until 1979. Prior to immigrating to Australia in 1984, she exhibited widely across Canada, receiving a Canada Council Grant and an award from the Print & Drawing Council of Canada in 1980. She received her MEd in Visual Arts in 1999 from UTS, Sydney.
In June and July 2010 Cathryn was invited to the MIRA artist residency in the south of Italy where she and the other residents held a final exhibition at the Palazzo Palmieri in Martignano. She continued traveling from there to the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and Great Britain with a month in London before returning to Sydney. She was invited to attend the Ondarte International Artist Residency in Akumal Mexico where she began working on a new series entitled "Water Works" ... and water was her focus for over a decade.
THE SHIFT to painting STILL LIFE ...
In 2021 Cathryn made a shift from studying water and started painting antique glass bottles (a gift of a friend's father collection) and her new work has been selected in major Art Prizes around Australia. She currently teaches drawing and painting at the Gosford Regional Gallery on the Central Coast of NSW. Her work is available through Sarah Birtles Art + Advice who exhibits with Affordable Art Fair Australia and Singapore.
McEwen as a collector appreciates and respects the beautiful shapes, individuality and irregularity of bottles made prior to modern technologies, mass production and the advent of plastics. These paintings help us to discover this same fascination for this exquisite material and appreciate the power of nostalgia – that a time, place and a newfound beauty can be contained in a simple object.
“There are so many themes and connections that older collectible glass bottles provide, and I have continued to collect and learn more about them over the past few years. Glass itself is a beautiful material to capture in paint, but I’m also intrigued by the capacity of these everyday objects to conjure up memories another time and place – a time of our parents and grandparents. Miraculously, these fragile objects are often found intact under old homes, in backyard sheds and buried along riverbanks and they deserve a second life as mementos of small town Australia, its history and people.”
My paintings are a closer inspection of the translucent qualities of old glass - a discovery of the colours, shapes and the textural effects distorted in collectible glass bottles - nostalgic layers of another time and place. I invite the viewer to experience the same fascination for this exquisite material and appreciate the power of nostalgia – that a time, place and a newfound beauty can be contained in a simple (once discarded) object.
LIST OF EXHIBITIONS
In June and July 2010 Cathryn was invited to the MIRA artist residency in the south of Italy where she and the other residents held a final exhibition at the Palazzo Palmieri in Martignano. She continued traveling from there to the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and Great Britain with a month in London before returning to Sydney. She was invited to attend the Ondarte International Artist Residency in Akumal Mexico where she began working on a new series entitled "Water Works" ... and water was her focus for over a decade.
THE SHIFT to painting STILL LIFE ...
In 2021 Cathryn made a shift from studying water and started painting antique glass bottles (a gift of a friend's father collection) and her new work has been selected in major Art Prizes around Australia. She currently teaches drawing and painting at the Gosford Regional Gallery on the Central Coast of NSW. Her work is available through Sarah Birtles Art + Advice who exhibits with Affordable Art Fair Australia and Singapore.
McEwen as a collector appreciates and respects the beautiful shapes, individuality and irregularity of bottles made prior to modern technologies, mass production and the advent of plastics. These paintings help us to discover this same fascination for this exquisite material and appreciate the power of nostalgia – that a time, place and a newfound beauty can be contained in a simple object.
“There are so many themes and connections that older collectible glass bottles provide, and I have continued to collect and learn more about them over the past few years. Glass itself is a beautiful material to capture in paint, but I’m also intrigued by the capacity of these everyday objects to conjure up memories another time and place – a time of our parents and grandparents. Miraculously, these fragile objects are often found intact under old homes, in backyard sheds and buried along riverbanks and they deserve a second life as mementos of small town Australia, its history and people.”
My paintings are a closer inspection of the translucent qualities of old glass - a discovery of the colours, shapes and the textural effects distorted in collectible glass bottles - nostalgic layers of another time and place. I invite the viewer to experience the same fascination for this exquisite material and appreciate the power of nostalgia – that a time, place and a newfound beauty can be contained in a simple (once discarded) object.
LIST OF EXHIBITIONS
