Edited Rancho Santa Fe Times newspaper article - summer 2007
“Color to create an environment of abundance”
Cathy Carey (www.artstudiosandiego.com) works in a style she calls Magic Realism. “My images are not surreal, but they are not strictly real either, I paint images that suggest a heightened reality.”
The first thing you notice about Cathy‘s paintings is the vivid color. “I think color has a healing property and can change your mood and create an environment of visual luxury. I don’t know how people thrive in beige or gray environments. I would feel deprived. I use pure colors, and don’t use black or gray to muddy my mixes, instead I tone my colors with their complements to keep the mixes fresh. Sometimes I place complements next to each other to create a color in the way the Impressionists did, allowing the eye to mix the color. I use color to depict emotional meaning rather than illustrate plain reality, using intense color to call attention to heightened emotional states. When I was able to choose a place to live as an adult I moved to California for the buttery light and palm trees, and was not disappointed. California to me is a perfect dream of color and texture. From the muted range of desert colors in crystal clear light to the foggy air and coastal colors of the beach, it is an always changing glory of vision. Later I discovered Santa Fe like so many artists before me and opened a studio where could paitn and teach each summer. The vision of the sky is hypnotic, the depth of the color and clairity of the air make everything you see there iconic.”
There is a wide variety of subject matter in Cathy’s work, scenes from California, Tuscany, Maui and Santa Fe. “I like to travel and take hundreds of photos - thank goodness for digital! I also paint on location, in watercolor if I am flying, in oil if I can pack it easily. In Giverny I painted outdoors every day with acrylic, and was pleased with the speed and ease of layering I was able to achieve. In my studio I use my photos, sketches and small paintings to create compositions for larger pieces. I work in oil on canvas using many layers. I underpaint in contrasting colors and finish with opposite colors and values. My paintings are not traditionally beautiful, they are a shade off normal, too heightened or flat to be real. This has been my experience of life, the things that caught my attention were overwhelming, they grabbed me and demanded attention. In my paintings I choose what calls to me - sometimes it’s just a beautiful melancholy moon, or a perfect flower, or a startling texture. It seems important to me to glorify things like that, when so many tragic things grab the headlines. The subject of my paintings are driven by ideas more than images. The idea of the relationship between all things, the inter connectedness between the earth and animals, humanity and the spirit world. In many of my paintings I depict dwellings. These often represent the spirt home, a place of retreat and sanctuary. Paths and rolling hills are also a recurring theme, and these represent life’s journey, the path through life one walks alone. The paths lead to a home, a place of completion and fulfilment, of beauty and respite.”
When looking at a catalog of an artist’s work, you notice the similarities that make up that person’s style. The way they use color, what they choose to paint, and how they apply the paint all say something unique about each artist. “Painting is having a dialogue with your inner self, my personality is expressed through my art and sometimes I am surprised by what it says back to me. I notice that I rarely paint people, I paint solitary scenes or things closely observed in detail. I am not interested in literal reality, or grim scenes and colors. When I choose a scene it is the story behind it that interests me, the action about to take place or recently finished. I purposely choose to have unrealistic proportions or colors, as long as it occurs to me that it is compelling. I like the layering of color to represent sparkling light, it feels like the passage of time, a fleeting moment. The ever present balance between light and dark, the harmony and balance of opposites.”
Some artists from which Cathy has drawn inspiration are Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Henri Rousseau, and Wayne Thiebaud. “I was very fortunate to travel to Giverny to study Monet’s style under an excellent teacher - Gayle Bennett. I was inspired by Monet’s way of capturing sparkling light and underpainting in contrasting colors. I’ve always liked Matisse’s method of using the canvas as a decorative surface breaking up space into patterns. Henri Rousseau is a favorite because of the sense of a story in his paintings, the mood and emotions he creates. I think this is because his style is primitive and allows for the magic of your emotions to engage, instead of the depiction being too realistic. I like Wayne Thiebaud’s use of thick painterly color, and his brushstroke texture is a delight. It reminds me of cake frosting!”
Upon viewing Cathy’s work, you wouldn’t necessarily connect her style with any of these artists. “I can see their influence in aspects of my style. I am more interested in primitive art or the Byzantine style than the Renaissance. I am also more interested in symbolic color, emotional content and shapes than realistic depictions of a scene. The Byzantine artists used color symbolically. White was the symbol of purity and black was the color of sin. They didn’t use gray, because that would be the combination of good and evil and would not have made sense. Since many people at that time were illiterate they read the bible stories in the stained glass windows and paintings, and color was the vocabulary. In contrast, the Renaissance artists used gray as shading to depict more realistic space, which for me lost much of the emotional charge I feel from more primitive styles.”
Cathy has had a formal education in painting starting with the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, the first Art Academy and Museum in the United States. “I also received a BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Over the years I have continued my education by taking workshops from favorite renowned artists. Several years ago I was invited to teach workshops every summer in Santa Fe, New Mexico.” Cathy also holds private classes locally in her studio and travels several times a year to Los Angeles to teach.
You can view Cathy’s work in the Rancho Santa Fe Gallery, and the Escondido Municipal Gallery in California. She gives open studio tours the last weekend of April and the first weekend of November every year. Her garden is a favorite on local San Diego garden tours each spring. For more information on Cathy Carey visit her website at: www.artstudiosandiego.com.