Cathy Read

Contemporary artist Cathy Read draws with masking fluid, creating vibrant metropolitan perspectives that reflect city life in all its glory.
Cathy Read re-imagines iconic architecture using explosive, colourful drops and trails of paint, held together with a structure of white lines. Inspired by looming and dramatic architecture. She draws on influences from various cities in the UK. In a previous life she worked as an Occupational Therapist using large art projects to help develop manual skills in children.

Cathy is self-taught. Her earlier paintings were predominantly circle based abstracts. Later developing into urban landscapes, fuelled by a lifelong interest in buildings. A natural evolution after a childhood dominated by giant decaying mills in the North of England's Cotton industry
Cathy exhibits her paintings around the UK, and Europe, and is in collections as far afield as Canada, Africa and New Zealand. Her painting of St Catherine's College Quad is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The piece was commissioned by Oxford University Press, to illustrate the 2016 Oxford Almanack.
Cathy Read is a member of the Society of Women Artists exhibiting with them in London since 2013, receiving the Barbara Tate Memorial Award ...

Cathy is self-taught. Her earlier paintings were predominantly circle based abstracts. Later developing into urban landscapes, fuelled by a lifelong interest in buildings. A natural evolution after a childhood dominated by giant decaying mills in the North of England's Cotton industry.
Since leaving Manchester Cathy returned many times and noticed the massive changes going on in her hometown, Middleton. The disappearing mills in particular had been an inspiration and she wanted to depict the ones that remained before it was too late. She began taking photographs in earnest and experimented with some collage interpretations before wondering if the masking technique she'd developed would work.
The initial attempts were promising and she soon found the architecture taking over. Hastened by the discovery of exciting new architecture whilst on her photo shoots around Manchester. It wasn't long before London was added to this list. Milton Keynes and Oxford followed. The masking gave her the architectural structure and the free flowing painting echoing the lives lived out within. Blown ink like a life force or energy escaping to the atmosphere.

Full details on Website
https://cathyreadart.com/news-art-events-exhibitions/


Previous exhibitions include
Royal Watercolour Society, Bankside Gallery,
Society of Women Artists at Mall Galleries, 2013-present
RI - Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
In 2011 Cathy participated in a performance artwork at Tate Modern