About

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Where light and dark brush past each other

Catherine Hyde
‘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. My utter joy at thirteen was to discover Alan Garner’s classic book The Owl Service and the whole world of archetypal symbolism and myth lay open at my feet.

In my paintings, I use the tree, stag, owl, crow and fish: symbols that are both universal and personal.  I also use the mysterious and ancient hare  – sometimes as an image of stillness and contemplation and sometimes for its ability to exist between earth and air: pure energy, sheer earthy magic.

I paint with acrylics on a fine-tooth canvas and build the surface with layers of glazes, adding thickening gels, gold and copper leaf and mica flakes for extra texture.  I like to move the picture structure around, keeping it fluid and mobile, so that the final image retains energy and atmosphere.

My monochrome paintings are mainly for illustration work and executed on Ampersand Clayboard panels.  The surface is made using a kaolin clay which is ground to an extremely smooth, highly absorbent finish (similar to the clay gesso grounds used in the Renaissance).  I build loose watery layers and then work into the surface with steel wool and scalpel blades, adding to and shifting the image.  Both techniques are a very organic, fluid way of working which gives me both freedom and control.

Over time I have found that the boundaries between my painting and my illustration have become happily mixed, referencing books and words in my paintings and bringing as many painterly qualities to my illustrations as possible.’