CATHERINE DUCKER
BELIEF IN ANOTHER WORLD
26 June–1 July 2023, 10.00–17.00
Private View: Tuesday 27 June, 18.30–20.30
As seen in House & Garden, June 2023.
-
My work has been evolving since I left St Martins over 20 years ago. My inspiration has always been the land. Life within the landscape. Travel, growing plants and farming have been the roots of much of my work. Endless moments to recreate. Raising my children and much of the chaos in my life threads through into the work. And latterly, working with children to develop their creative thinking.
The light and transparency of watercolour can be beautiful. I therefore try to find a way also with oil to attain the light and beauty. Some of the most abstract of my works take the longest to resolve. All of the work is spontaneous. I use very specific colour, tone, textures, marks to create an atmosphere within the painting.
The studio is cleared of colour before I paint, so that the intensity of colour on one painting is intense and very specific. Once the painting feels “alive” to me it is right. Some paintings come easily and some take many years to resolve. Some of the paintings are peaceful and some energetic. Paintings taking longer to resolve, such as the Ghana series, after spending days with lovely African children. Some evolving quickly after an excitement of inspiration, the light on a bird or on a plant I’ve grown. I painted obsessively, I think I live obsessively, since every day after I left college. After a time I wanted to get away from painting and find another world and really release myself from the desire to always create.
In 2002 I studied Horticulture at Reading and set up the organic market garden, teaching people to grow food and a passion for commercial sustainable commercial food. I also have my 2 gorgeous children. I also set up a space to facilitate learning at The Coaching Barn.
My paintings have always been waiting for me. I have been able to re engage with them at different points when time allows to ensure I stay genuine to my soul. Growing with new feelings as I mature to recreate from a more open and measured perspective.
-
Catherine Ducker is a fine artist based in South Oxfordshire. Her work has been ever-evolving as she takes inspiration from the land that surrounds her. Catherine lives within the landscape, from growing and planting to raising her children, the threads of her life at the roots of her practice, and are evident throughout her work. A life of endless moments to collect, capture and recreate.
For this exhibition, Catherine has mainly worked with bold watercolours, and uses flowers as a way to express emotions and feelings in life.
2021: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2019: Sunday Times Watercolour
2017: Sunday Times Watercolour.
Alex Hammersley fine art. Pop up show Soho.2014: Solo show Henley Festival.
2013/2010: Solo show in studio.
2003. Solo show for Le Salon for Art Collectors, Vanessa Suchar London.
2002: Art in Action. Waterperry. Oxfordshire. Henley Festival solo show.
2001: Royal West of England Academy. Bristol.
Singer and Frielander. Mall Galleries. London
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Affordable art fair with Milne and Mollar.
Fresh Art. Islington.
Open studio at Gas Works New Kings Road.(Studio for 5 years)2000: Singer and Frielander. Watercolour competition.
1999: Art in Action. Waterperry.
Henley Festival.
Art on paper fair. Royal College.
Winter collection, Spring Exhibition. Bankside gallery.1998: The Air Gallery. Dover Street.
Royal Overseas League. Picadilly. Award.
Red Gallery mixed show. Marlow
Modern Artists gallery. Whitchurch.
London Contemporary Art fair.
World of Watercolours. The Dorchester. London.
Sainsbury’s wine label award.1997: Neval Gallery, Canterbury.
Candid Arts trust Islington
Datchet Art gallery. Ascot.
Henley Festival.
Bankside gallery.1996: London Contemporary Art Society. Royal Festival Hall.
Graduation Show.
Awarded youngest member of RWS Bankside. -
CATHERINE DUCKER
Working as a curator, the most exciting moments are often those when one discovers new work that jumps off the wall or the floor and demands not just to be seen, but to be investigated further. Such moments tend never to be forgotten, and I distinctly remember my encounter with Catherine Ducker’s large watercolour of flowers that was prominently displayed in the 2021 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The coordinator that year was Yinka Shonibare RA, working to the theme of ‘Reclaiming Magic’. Catherine’s painting fitted the bill perfectly because her luscious colours and bold, sweeping brushstrokes injected their own particular magic into the celebratory mix. That year’s show was celebratory in more senses than one, because lockdown had just lifted, museums and galleries were reopening, and culture-starved visitors (myself included) were desperate to make up for lost time. After following up with a studio visit and meeting with Catherine at the secluded Oxfordshire farm where she lives, I left buzzing with inspiration and swiftly booked her for a show at Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery (opening January 2024).
On first viewing, Catherine’s chromatic fireworks reminded me of the wonderful flower-pieces painted by the German Expressionist artist, Emil Nolde (1867-1956), in his garden at Seebüll close to the border with Denmark. When working in watercolour, Nolde used dampened paper that allowed his colours to bleed, whilst heightening the natural hues of the flowers in front of him. By not holding back, Catherine similarly captures that sense of enrichment and even exoticism, which in her hands is not confined merely to the blooms, but also energises her stems and her backgrounds, even her vases. She also works on a larger scale than Nolde, as for example in A Few Wild Ones and Heidi’s Garden Sanctuary, in which she deploys her usual bright palette to articulate space and light, albeit in the latter work with more of a leaning towards abstraction. Some paintings, for example Flower Storm, seem to positively burst beyond the confines not just of the frame, but also of the picture surface, as if obeying a new type of perspective in reverse – the artwork as projection rather than window. In oils such as River Ride the calligraphic, textured brushstrokes convey movement – of water and air, as well as plant forms.
As the artist explains: “Travel, growing plants and farming have been the roots of much of my work.” Her knowledge and appreciation of the natural world were deepened in 2002 when she studied Horticulture in Reading. By harnessing her enduring love of the land to a highly lyrical handling of paint, Catherine extends and updates the colourist tradition in modern British art. She may be compared for example with figures such as Barbara Rae, Gillian Ayres and Patrick Heron (whom she was excited to visit in his studio at Zennor).
This new exhibition has been aptly named ‘Belief in another World’. Post-lockdown, our lives remain beset by concerns about biodiversity loss, extreme weather events and rising sea levels. By creating such vibrant interpretations of gardens and landscapes, championing their virility and capacity for sensory overload, Catherine reminds us of the simple things that bring joy yet could be threatened by changes to the ecosystem. We cannot afford not to take the steps that are needed to safeguard their legacy for future generations.
Jonathan Benington, independent curator/writer, April 2023
-
Please email thegallery@greenandstone.com with the NUMBER and TITLE of the artwork(s) you would like to enquire about.
