A chance to read again the interview/article by Belinda Recio from The True North Gallery in Hamilton, Massachusetts about my work and process.
“UK artist Catherine Hyde works with layers of paint, pastel, gold and silver leaf, and mica to create dreamlike imagery that explores the interplay between animals, landscape and imagination. We represent Catherine at True North and we love her work. I had the chance to interview Catherine—about her art and the role that nature plays in it.
BR: Your work is filled with archetypal and ecological imagery from nature—animals, trees, night, dusk, dawn, water, stars, the moon, seasonal cycles and more. Animals in particular appear again and again in your work: the stag, hare, owl, crow and fish. What inspires you to paint these animals? Do you feel in some way personally connected to them or to the symbolism they embody?
CH: I love all the animals I paint, for themselves and their beauty. I try to convey their essence in my paintings. I also paint animals I know and have observed in the English landscape. To view them you need to be quiet and unobtrusive. I find it deeply thrilling—a gift—to chance upon a stag or see an owl fly by. The encounter heightens my own connection with nature, and I become part of the story.
BR: In honor of spring, and the hare’s association with fertility, we are featuring a special selection of your hare paintings in our online gallery. As a nocturnal animal that is seen mostly at dawn and dusk, the hare is associated with the magic attributed to these “border” times when our eyes can play tricks on us. Is this one of the reasons that hares appeal to you, and is this why they appear so frequently in your work? What does the hare mean to you?
CH: I am fascinated by the mythology and symbolism surrounding animals. The hare is perhaps one of my favorite creatures and I use it in my art for many purposes—for its fertility and mysterious movements in the landscape, but also to suggest stillness and contemplation. It has become very much an image of self—at times quiet and unobtrusive, and at others flying between earth and air, occupying its own dimension.
BR: In traditional totemic cultures, a totem animal is perceived and experienced as a guide, protector, or relative. In popular usage, a “totem animal” is an animal that offers personal guidance or inspiration through its attributes and symbolism. Do the animals you paint have a totemic resonance for you? Do you have a “totem” animal?
CH: At one time I could have said the hare was my main totem animal, but in maturity I am suspecting that the owl is, too.
BR: I would like to ask you about your wonderfully poetic titles. They add another layer of meaning to your work, and often shape the narrative of the imagery. How important are titles to you, and which comes first: the title or the painting?
CH: Poetry is very important to me. I love the visual impact of words, so sometimes the words for a painting are there before the art, and sometimes they come later, when I have had a chance to consider what I have created. I like to use titles to enhance and suggest. Some painters are not concerned about this and would regard titles as completely irrelevant—and possibly even bad practice—but I have always been aware that both words and images are a fundamental part of who I am, and I need both elements to express myself.
BR: You have explained that your work explores the liminal spaces that “lie between dream and consciousness, land and water, earth and sky, dusk and dawn.” Liminal spaces are often described as “betwixt and between,” or “no-longer but not-yet.” They are indeterminate places or states in which objects, events, sensations, or thoughts have yet to fully take shape. Can you tell us about a couple of your paintings that are especially liminal and what inspired them?
CH: My painting “Full Moon at the Edge of the Silver Dawn” comes to mind. It is based on the River Helford in Cornwall, which is a tidal inlet. It is a deeply magical place, with steep banks of trees coming down to the waters edge. It is very much a place of meeting points. I became quite obsessed with the shift between the water line and the land. The hare in the painting acts as a vehicle of movement in the implied stillness of the water and the landscape. She is airborne. The fish lies under the water. The band of mist above her conceals and reveals stars, the moon, and a small stag high on the hill. My intention was to capture the moment in-between, when the world is in suspension.
Another painting, “The Still Earth” is a dawn image, and again, there is an “above” and “below.” The owl moves with its own purpose into the light and the hare is of the earth, running to a different story. They are connected and not connected. The landscape is still, and the boundary between earth and air is abstracted. The line is wavering, suggesting points where one can become part of the other.
BR: I think that liminal quality is what people like best about your work. In fairy tales, liminal spaces are often where magic happens or where one can discover a “door” between worlds. Your paintings feel like that—like portals between landscape and imagination—where nature is still enchanted, and anything can happen.”
©Belinda Recio, 2015.
First published in Organic Spa Magazine.
Hotter than July
What weather, what a summer.
There are three new paintings in the Shop
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Summer Solstice
From a week of mists and damp fogs I have awoken today to a glorious summer morning.
Calm and quiet and the air is thick with the bright poetry of birds and pollen.
The Broadway Arts Festival
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The Broadway Arts Festival was amazing and taking part in the Art Beat weekend a great experience – I have made new friends and caught up with old. I am never sure how much stock to take with me so although I sold well I have lots of prepared prints left and have placed a £15 off offer on all the prints until the end of June.
AND MY PAINTING ‘THE CROWS SONG’WAS ON THE BANNER
I am delighted to be the featured illustrator for June in Words and Pictures the online magazine for SCWBI (The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators)
“This month’s Featured Illustrator is Catherine Hyde. A fine art graduate of Central School of Art, Catherine has crafted a career in painting and, latterly, award winning illustration that explores the moods and atmosphere of the natural world. See more of her work in the Featured Illustrator Gallery.
Although I grew up in a more urban than rural environment I was encouraged by my artist parents and my mother in particular (a great gardener and reader) to observe the world and wildlife around me. The combination of roaming and playing outside along with a home filled with poetry, story books and beautiful objects fueled my natural affiliation with Nature and my love of the cycle of the seasons. Home, as an image of time, the quietness of interior spaces and atmosphere is very important to me and features constantly in my work.
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| The nearly home trees |
As a child I was lucky enough to be a precocious reader: I devoured Blake, galloped through Grimm (with terror at my heels), constantly revisited the melancholy world of Hans Christian Andersen and gleefully recited the poetry of AA Milne and Spike Milligan. But my greatest love was increasingly for writers where I found not just lyricism but a suggestion of something more indefinable: the landscape shaped by layers of time, the workings of man and mythology. I was drawn to John Masefield, L.M Boston, Eleanor Farjeon, Elizabeth Goudge and C.S. Lewis who explored history and atmosphere and an indefinable sense of mystery and magic which culminated in my utter joy to discover myth made real in Alan Garner’s Owl Service.
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| ‘owls not flowers’ |
At school my major interests were Art, Literature and History and I went on to study Fine Art Painting at Central School of Art in London. I have exhibited my paintings in galleries for over thirty years with book Illustration only becoming a major part of my work over the last ten. The narrative element of my work lends itself to creating successful greetings cards and prints and these were seen by one of Templar Publishing’s designers in 2008 who then commissioned me to interpret Carol Ann Duffy’s fairy tale The Princess’ Blankets as a sequence of paintings. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful chance to enter the world of publishing by working with a beautiful, thoughtful text leading to a sumptuous production. I was also lucky to be given completely free reign with my approach and it is perhaps the most unusual book I have worked on. The Princess’ Blankets won the 2009 English Association Key Stage 2 Award for Illustration and I am really proud that all my picture books have had the honour of being nominated for the Greenaway Award.
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| Princess Blankets: the forest’s blanket |
My first author/illustrator book The Star Tree was really an attempt to create something that encompasses lullaby, magic, imagination and journey. It is a book that I would have liked to have read when I was little, one that I wish my children had been young enough to enjoy when they were small and one that I hope their children will love.
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| Star Tree spread |
My most recent project for Zephyr (Head of Zeus) The Snow Angel novel by Lauren St John has been another learning curve: a front cover with black and white interiors. These interiors were executed on clay board – a new technique for me which I absolutely relish for its organic qualities and mark making possibilities.
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| black and white interior for Snow Angel |
Over the past few years the boundaries between my painting and illustration have become happily mixed, referencing works on canvas with words from books and poetry and bringing as many painterly qualities to my illustrations as possible.
Painter or Illustrator? I am Catherine Hyde.”
Broadway Arts Festival
I am very much looking forward to The Broadway Arts Festival next week.
I will be showing and demonstrating my work at The Art Beat weekend 8 – 10 June and giving a talk and
demonstration of Clayboard painting on Sunday 10th June at 2.30-3.30pm.
Alongside my work I will have my books, framed and unframed prints, some small originals and lots of cards.
15% off everything in The Mistletoe Tree Shop until 29th May with code
Catherine28
It is traditional in my family that I begin mentioning the fact that my birthday is at the end of May at least a month if not more in advance. This year I have been very lax about this self promotion – perhaps because I don’t want to remind myself that time is slipping through my fingers like oil. June is almost here and the longest day draws ever closer at which point the wheel turns and the days begin to shorten again. I have monster amounts of work to do but I am excited for my new book which is coming together well and the solo show for Foss in London is taking form. I am aiming to produce a set of work that launches the refurbished gallery with magic and hope in every piece.
Lightfast Framed Prints
I am very pleased to be able to offer small lightfast prints in a crisp white box frame. At £30.00 each they are affordable to collect as well as being lovely readymade and long lasting gifts for friends and family.
Over the next weeks I am going to be adding lots of images that are less well known but which work wonderfully on this small scale.
Beltane: The beginning of Summer
1st May: Beltane: my favourite month, my birthday month. The month of the Hawthorn and Flora Day.
This months featured image of a glowing May Tree is called ‘The rising moon’ is a new print in the shop and on offer for £65
To celebrate the blue skies, nest building, leafing and budding all around this month everything in The Mistletoe Tree Shop has 15% off with this code:
SPRING15
We have had some glorious weather here in Cornwall and the lengthening days mean that the sun is filling the garden from mid morning. Everything is budding and growing and I feel lighter spirited hearing the birds singing.
The year is galloping on and I have a solo show to prepare for December and a book to finish writing and illustrating for the end of the year. I barely have time to think but in June I will be having an outing to take part and demonstrate at the Broadway Arts Festival.
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