Exhibition by Catherina Hearne

From my earliest years growing up in rural Ireland I have had a keen awareness of ‘place’ and how we engage with, and are formed by our relationships to and experiences of particular places. I am intrigued by the way some places can hold a memory of past events, how they resonate with us emotionally, visually and most importantly imaginatively. My paintings suggest or depict the kind of places that can both connect us to our past and feed our spiritual and imaginative sensibilities, for me they present a direct connection between landscape and belief, whether that belief is religious, spiritual or mythological.

Many of my paintings depict places or suggest spaces for contemplation, they exist as exotic and sometimes bizarre ‘props’, full of aspiration and hinting at a sometimes faded grandeur, drawing the eye and operating as points of departure for our imagination. The notion of ‘delight’ is relevant, my work does not deal with or depict the mundane or banal, it is unapologetically a celebration; of colour, of surface, of shape and texture, of life. These works utilise painting techniques and approaches that required a huge amount of research and experimentation over quite a few years. Processes such as encaustic with its use of oil, wax, pigment and dammar varnish are time consuming, temperamental and difficult materials to control. They do however provide the richness and depth of colour and quality of surface that I require and I hope is enjoyed by the viewer.”

This exhibition will be on display in our Easter Snow Gallery until the end of May 2019.