Catherine Lottes

Creating art has always been a means for me to express things that spoken language cannot touch, or perhaps only
begins to reveal… Although I first began painting & drawing when I was only 4 years old, my work has continued to
evolve over the last 53 years as I perfect processes & skills and strive to build upon and surpass prior endeavors.
Every project is an ongoing journey or quest from the familiar to the brink of something new and even more
magnificent.

My professional artistic career began about 35 years ago in 1979, with several large-scale public art projects for the
City and County of Milwaukee. I have predominantly been working in large-scale impressionistic realism but have also worked in the abstract/ color-field painting as well as B&W and color photography since the mid 1970’s. [I studied under landscape artist, William Nichols, watercolor artist, Laurence Rathsack, and photographer, Steven Foster, at UWM in the late 1970’s. Since 1996 I have also been working with kiln formed glass – mostly self taught.]

My sources of inspiration have long been water, nature, botanical forms, light, atmosphere, sometimes figurative subjects or animal life and poetry. Although my interests and influences are broad and...

University of WI-Milwaukee - BFA, 1979

I have occasionally shown in galleries and other venues since the late 1970’s; however, much of my work comes from private commissions and Public Art Installations for a variety of Municipalities. Including the City of Milwaukee, WI 1979-1981 to Menomonee Falls, WI in 2014. On Public Art Commissions, I often create site-specific works, which involve extensive personal research towards understanding and evoking the particular "genius loci" or spirit of place *

* Won an Award in the Spaces & Places category in the 17th Annual Mayor's Design Awards, 5/21/14 for the Lapham Park "Life's Garden" mosaic at 19 01 N 6th St , Milwaukee, WI : http://city.milwaukee.gov/MayorsDesignAwards.htm#.VHIqHBzJc20

Throughout the mid 1980’s to 1990’s, I worked extensively in the Creative Industry, while still continuing to do my own personal photographic and painting work – which I have shown in a variety of venues from time to time. [A more compete list of shows and galleries is available upon request]