DPW Spotlight Interview: Catherine A.

Each week we will spotlight a different DPW artist who will give away one of their best paintings. To enter to win Catherine's painting "Sketch #30" go to Daily Paintworks and click on the link at the top of the page announcing their interview.

From Catherine's DPW Gallery Page:

Hello! I'm Catherine from St.Petersburg, Russia. 29 y.o.

I'm really happy you are reading this text because it's the first of this sort. I have never written my own biography, my way to painting, I have never described my years of education. There is something to tell you about my years of education and the way to painting.

The fact is that while I'm reading somebody's biography, his history, while I'm meeting his presented image I do it all the same through the prism of my own perception of life. I see the person by the description as I wish to see him, as my imagination has created him after reading his biography.

But the trick is all my paintings I create is my biography. Just imagine a white canvas in front of you. You take some paint and a brush and after a while something unique appears that can be created only by one person. It looks like a fingerprint. And even if you try to do the same it may show resemblance, but it is another picture.

Every painting is more than just a canvas and some paint on it. It is the way, every day that was spent by me, all my experience in every brush stroke. That doesn't mean that I'm thinking about my way while I'm creating. It means that all I have seen in my life, all I have felt - everything is in front of you.

What can be the most reliable biography than this!

With Love, Catherine A.

Sketch #30
(click to view)

Enter to win by clicking on the link at the top of the DPW home page announcing Catherine's interview.

Tell us a bit about how you first started painting.

I belong to those artists who started painting since they learned how to hold a pencil and a brush in their hands. But in my mind there’s different attitude to art: conscious and unconscious. So, starting period can be called my unconscious art when I just painted as all enthusiastic children do. I found interesting materials, techniques for me. This period can be considered as an acquaintance with the world of art. I tried arts and crafts where my creations were more than a page of paper and became volumetric.

This is unique experience that gives courage, excitement in what we, artists, do. And even when I entered the art school that was time of cognition and search.

Then I had a period when I painted practically nothing, but I took pictures a lot, I found new music and I expressed myself by my clothes and hairstyle. You must have guessed that it was the age of teenage.

And after that when I entered the university I came to the world of art consciously where I have been creating for twelve years.

The Day of Dreams
(click to view)

Did you have any stops and starts in your painting career?

The career of an artist exactly I began not long ago, three years ago. This period is the same with the birth of my son. When he was born I magically felt the birth of a certain creative personality inside me.

I have seen exactly what I want and how. This way everyday painting has come to my life from big canvases. But paintings of large format demand energy contribution a lot, thoughts, thinking over the plot and forces for concentration, courage.

It required a lot of time and several periods of pause to come to small format to feel what I really want. And nowadays I’m here, in everyday painting of small format.

Who or what inspires you most?

Inspiration can come from very sudden sources, may be cooking delicious food in the kitchen or even walking in my favorite park. So even the process of creating of the painting inspires me a lot, while I’m creating or I’m looking how another artist is painting if I’m interested in his creation.

One moment the key of inspiration has become my conscious; it shouldn’t be waited for, you should create it. Just make yourself inspired. Every person has got something special he likes most, what makes him happy and what makes necessary mood for life at all, not only for creativity on canvas.

Small Street to the Sea
(click to view)

What does procrastination look like for you?

Procrastination is a condition whose reason is some internal unresolved, the problem that wasn’t resolved in the mind. It is very important to catch by tail that feeling or situation that was the reason of my being in the condition of procrastination. Just paying attention to this matter frees a lot of energy for creativity. But this self examination needs energy. But it’s worth it because as a result I become awakened, inspired, able to give my creativity to the world.

What techniques work to ensure that you make time for your art?

When creativity becomes your lifestyle and profession then your attitude to it also changes. The degree of the responsibility to grow as a professional I have also change. That means the key here is discipline and balance between the process and rest. If this balanced is achieved, energy for creativity is always enough. And the best time for creativity for me is morning when a day is just beginning, when I’m in tight and clean contact with my soul.

Street Food
(click to view)

How do you generally arrive at ideas for your paintings?

While I’m painting a new idea of the next painting often comes to me. It can be a desire to express in a new way what I have done before. Or just a desire to try, to depict, to create. And also, when I even don’t think about new ideas at all. While you are walking, doing something habitual or something new. But meantime my observer always works, he watches the life as it is. The idea can be brought by watching some interesting colours, textures, weather condition, forms. It just needs to relax and observe. But if an idea has come it needs to be written down. The idea is alive it can escape.

How do you keep art "fresh"? What techniques have helped you avoid burnout and keep your work vibrant and engaging? 

I think it’s the most difficult question for an artist. There is no universal recipe. But it can be created for yourself. When you find your own business it’s generally interesting and limitless. Art is our reflection of what we feel and see. It’s important to be fresh for perception of life. To live enthusiastically and enjoy your life. The same will be your art. Just allow to have all feelings, to be alive. As for me, I’m awakened by cooking special food, time with my family, walking outdoors, reading books. It may be called a completeness of life that fills me and makes me alive, open, fills my feelings. To express it on canvas.

At Home
(click to view)

What do you feel you are learning about right now as an artist? What makes you happiest about your art?

I feel freedom, absence of any limits and conventions. I feel a new horizon behind the previous. I feel that the way of creativity is limitless. That makes me happy, really passionated by life. I don’t divided art and life by different parts, I see a common system of my values, with constant growth, my rhythm and thin concentration with myself.

Thanks, Catherine!

© 2020 Sophie Marine