EL SUEÑO DE GRANADA ART WORLD
Entrevista a
CATHERINE ABEL
Catherine Abel is an Australian famous painter internationally recognized for her beautiful female portraits and her melancholic still lives with which she surprises and demonstrates her passion for Art. Catherine Abel captivates us with each of her paintings that transcend the art and her own influences. We invite her and we want her in Granada very soon, but in the meantime, here she leaves us her words, an interview in which she talks about her work, her emotions, her life and her musical tastes. She has exhibited in Australia, France and the USA.
What inspire you to paint? what makes you begin or what do you see?
My inspiration to paint always comes from a place of desire to create beauty, no matter the subject I choose to work with. I have two very different sources of inspiration ~ the female form and the still lives, but both are equally about capturing the essence of beautiful women or beautiful objects and putting them into a painting that arrests a moment in time so that the viewer can fill the senses / imagination with something out of the ordinary. I look for beauty in simple, everyday objects.
Composition is also an important motivation for me at the beginning of every painting -like with the still lives-. I spend a lot of time placing the objects and rearranging them into a composition that allows the harmony of the objects to create a story within the confines of the perimeters of the canvas.
Painting women is my absolute passion. I find the sensuality of women harmonises with that inner drive I have to express the female psyche which is the embodiment of all things beautiful and spiritual in this world.
How did you begin to paint? what experiences do you remember from your childhood?
didn’t have a very good childhood… it was filled with a lot of pain and anguish. It’s taken me a lot of years as an adult to deal with the trauma, and even now, I still don’t understand a lot of what happened -or why it was even necessary-. From a very young age I began to draw… and I didn’t stop drawing all through my childhood. It was the way I emotionally dealt with the ache of losing my father, and the lack of physical and emotional love and affection in our family. I hid myself away, immersed in my art; it was my refuge. A safe place from the pain.
I began to do a small amount of painting as a teenager but I didn’t think I was very good at it. I needed and wanted to learn traditional techniques but in Australia at that time, it was not considered an important part of artistic expression. And so I stopped painting and concentrated on other art forms. Eventually, in my mid 20s I realised it was the only thing that would make me happy - the only way to fill the vacant space inside me.
What about the portrait you paint, the women, her faces, their melancoly. Tell us about itI
Are my portraits of women melancholic? I guess they are… but I don’t necessarily see them this way. For me, it’s about capturing, in the model’s facial expression and pose of her body, her reaction to something that has happened, - or that she has witnessed. The viewer is free to interpret this narrative. Often what you see in something arises only because it’s within you; so there is no right or wrong way to interpret my art. The other elements in the painting are superfluous in a way. My most successful paintings are the ones in which the woman is realistic and the backgrounds are very stylised. Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve lost this way of painting. But I hope one day to revisit and rediscover this as a primary way of expressing feminine portraiture.
What do you want to paint in the future, your illusion, what you want to get...
I think the future for me is figurative - definitely portraits of strong, beautiful women but also men. Also, there is an element of mystery - of not knowing exactly where the creative path will take me - and I’m ok with that. One has to ‘let go’ of controlling the things that don’t like to be tamed. I’m a wild horse at heart. I need to be free. So I don’t really know for certain what’s to come…
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine that I would be painting still lives and yet it’s a significant landmark in my career. I still feel like I would like to explore nature as design and landscapes, but I want to combine the female figure together with this concept. Nature is a symbol of the untamable and the female psyche can’t be either. This could be the ultimate allegory.
And about your art preferences, your favorite painter, What would you say about these Da Vinci, Botticelli and Velazquez
I don’t have a favourite painter, it’s impossible to assign this title to just one painter. I love all painters who have gone before us, who paved the way for people like me to continue the tradition of interpreting and expressing the world around them through art. My inspiration continues to change and evolve as my art does. When I first started painting Tamara de Lempicka was my favourite inspiration but these days, I’m hooked on Bouguereau, Waterhouse, Alphonse Mucha and Klimt.
My all-time favourite cluster of artists would be the painters, sculptors, writers, and dancers who were living in Paris between 1900-1930. This was truly an inspirational time in history -a coming together of people wanting to reinvent themselves and their methods of expression. They had such a unique voice that they have stayed with us, and will be with us forever.
Just like Da Vinci and Boticelli and Velazquez, these artists remain part of a timeless epicentre of art as a continued tradition. They are our forefathers and therefore demand our honour and respect. I take my responsibility as a ‘relative’ very seriously… and chose to ‘inherit’ little pieces of that history and put it into my art - as a commemoration to the Timeline of Masters.
Your favourite musician... and what are your favourite songs from The Beatles, tell us something about them
I apologise to all you Beatle fans out there, but I’m not a fan! I know it’s crazy, but I just didn’t get into them when I was young. I can appreciate their music but I don’t listen to it. Growing up I was a HUGE ABBA fan (and when I grew up I wanted to be Agnetha ;-) I listen to all kinds of different music now though. Your favorite film Henry & June ~ a movie about the authors Anais Nin and Henry Miller, living in Paris in the 1920s and their love affair. It is a beautifully portrayed, intimate depiction of that era - full of inspiration at every glance. I never get sick of watching it.
Do you have a special love to any of your paintings?
It’s always the same: the painting that is on the easel - the one I am immersed in the process of bringing to life - is the one that holds all my love and attention. It’s like a love affair.
Each and every painting I have created holds a special moment of time in my heart. These are the notches on the timeline of my creative life - the one that runs parallel to the my actual life.
How do you want to be remembered as a painter and person?
I think most people want to leave behind a legacy after they die - and my paintings are my legacy. If I can continue to inspire people through my art even when I’m gone - the same way I get inspired when I see an exhibition of Matisse or Monet, then I can’t ask for anything more. I just really hope my paintings don’t disappear into the archives, and my work is forgotten. Women painters are notoriously overlooked in the pages of our art history books.
Warm regards
Catherine
