"Polarised Reflection" Painting

Caia Matheson is a contemporary oil painter based in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Her richly layered abstract and figurative paintings explore themes of duality, transformation and journey, reflecting a lifelong fascination with the relationship between opposites—light and darkness, stillness and movement, the visible and invisible, memory and place. Drawing on landscapes, cultures and personal experience, her work creates immersive visual narratives where colour, texture and gesture evoke both physical and emotional journeys.
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Matheson's earliest memories are rooted in the natural world, spending time in the wilderness of Kruger National Park and developing a deep connection with its wildlife and expansive landscapes. Raised alongside a Xhosa nanny and a Zulu gardener, she was immersed in African storytelling, traditions and ritual, experiences that nurtured an early awareness of the many ways different cultures interpret the world.
At the age of seven, she emigrated with her family to Tokyo, Japan, where she attended an international school. The dramatic contrasts between Africa and Japan—nature and metropolis, tradition and innovation, East and West—became formative influences that continue to underpin her artistic practice. Frequent journeys between Japan and South Africa, together with travels throughout Asia, including Thailand, Singapore and the Seychelles, fostered an enduring fascination with movement, cultural exchange and the layered memories that travel leaves behind. These experiences continue to surface in her paintings through recurring motifs, gestural marks and vibrant, symbolic colour.
Returning briefly to Johannesburg during apartheid, Matheson experienced the stark realities of racial segregation, including the powerful symbolism of black and white benches in Joubert Park. These early encounters with division and contradiction deepened her understanding of colour as both an emotional and social language, reinforcing the themes of paradox and duality that remain central to her work.
At sixteen she moved to London to study Art and Languages before building a career across the creative industries, working in fashion, music, event production and set design.