My Place
30 November 2022 - 8 January 2023
Catherine Hickson, Relaxing 2022
This body of work began with my rereading of Vanessa Bell’s biography. I felt inspired by the way she set up her modernist home Charleston, in the UK, in 1915. As founder of the Bloomsbury group Vanessa strayed far from the social conservative norms of her time. Her sense of home was loaded with layers of social, creative, economic, political and gender nuances. My favourite room in Charleston is the sitting room where Vanessa and her lover Duncan Grant painted murals, displayed their textiles, arranged their ceramic vessels - surrounding themselves with their creative output.
I asked some of my favourite friends about their favourite place in their home. Their responses led me into a deep engagement with the way they have each created their sanctuary where they retreat, relax, settle, socialise, work, and play.
The small scale of the paintings reflects the intimacy of being comfortable, maybe alone, possibly engaged with others but essentially calm, relaxed, at home.
Firstly I made pastel sketches curating objects into an interpretive composition. Once I began painting I responded to what each painting needed in terms of structure, colour and tone. I wanted each painting to reflect the individual style, needs and personal aesthetics of each subject.
Catherine Hickson is a well known versatile artist and artist educator with a studio in North Bondi and the Hunter Valley. Catherine also works as a mental health therapist specialising in attachment and trauma informed therapies.
Catherine's tertiary education includes a BA Communications UTS, Master Museum Studies USYD, Grad Dip Education, Grad Dip Counselling. She studied drawing and painting at National Art School, Sydney, The Central Art School, Adelaide, and Charlie Sheard Studio School, Sydney.
Catherine paints across all genres - still life, landscape and abstraction. Working mainly in oil paint her practices moves from observed still life to loose gestural work. She has been exhibiting since 2005 with solo shows at Paddington Contemporary, Charles Hewitt, Maunsell Wickes, Michael Reid Murrurundi, Art2Muse and Stella Downer Fine Art.
Catherine has been a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize, the Waverley Art Prize, and The North Sydney Art Prize. This year Catherine is a finalist in the Viola Bromley Prize currently on show at Muswellbrook Regional Art Gallery, and the Waverley 9x5 Landscape Prize opening in December.
Her work is held in private collections in Australia and overseas. She has been published in numerous lifestyle magazines.