I like being outside. Living in South Edinburgh I am surrounded by parks and hills where I go walking with my Border Terrier, Stanley. These are places which let me escape into other worlds while the cities visual cues are never far away. Making pictures is what I like doing best, working directly from source sitting on the ground, feeling rooted. I am looking for enough tension between the forms and spaces and the inevitable shifts and changing appearances with time. I use visual abbreviation and work with a vocabulary of idiosyncratic lines and coloured patchworks shapes. I also make larger works in the studio allowing a different relationship with time and space. Being confined makes me uncomfortable yet it is useful. It helps me recognise and expand the potential within a single idea, transforming perceptions to discover wondrous realities.
- the artist
Catharine Davison (b. 1970 Kilkeel, Co Down, Northern Ireland) studied BA (Hons) Graphic Design (Illustration) at Liverpool John Moores University (1990–93) and an MA Illustration at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College (1997–01) and in 2024-5 the Turps Banana Correspondence Course. Selected groups exhibitions include Nature Turns, (2025), Frontiers, (2024) The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Jacksons Art Prize, Finalists; Bankside Gallery; London (2024 and 2025), Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts London (2025 and 2019); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize; London (2022). Solo exhibitions include Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh (2013/ 15/ 17/ 19/ 2022 and 2025). Recent prizes include: The Anne Redpath Award for Painting, (2024) Visual Arts Scotland Annual Exhibition, The Royal Scottish Academy, Visual Artist and Craft Maker Award from The City of Edinburgh Council, in partnership with Creative Scotland, (2022) and W. Gordon Smith Award, (2018) and winner of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, (2014). She is the Painting Course Leader at Leith School of Art.