Artist Spotlight - Catherine Ruth Church

I had a place at Art School when I was 16 but I decided to study English and Drama at Exeter University instead. I became a theatre director/producer and performer and I am very lucky to have had a 25 year career in theatre. I am also very lucky to still be able to paint as this was always what I wanted to end up doing but at the moment I am doing and loving both.

Movements such as the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Bauhaus hare a constant source of inspiration. Artists that particularly influenced me are Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Gillian Ayres and Claude Monet.

I walk away from the canvas and try and see it at different angles and as I paint, it really helps me see the balance of tones and shapes across the canvas. I use a pearlized paint and gold leaf to create texture on top of the layers I create with paint. In Teal Landscape the painting progressively gets more and more abstract towards the bottom of the piece and the texture becomes more obvious.

I dream colour combinations which sounds lovely, but sometimes I have to try and
turn off my mind or I would never get to sleep.
My mother is synesthetic – she sees words in colours, I haven’t inherited this, but I do wonder if some
of this colour sense has come down to me.

You have an amazing semi-abstract style - what process do you use to achieve this style?

The flowers and hedgerows near my studio in Hampshire will often give me ideas. I try and get the form and colours right first. I sometimes use a photograph of a flower as a starting point and then I very deliberately stop looking at the object and try and re-create it and change from memory. To express the colour and the form.