Catherine Stringer
Artist’s Statement
Tasmanian artist Catherine Stringer has a deep connection to water and the sea. Her underwater inspired paintings and more recent handmade seaweed paper artworks allude to metaphor and narrative.
Biography
Catherine Stringer is a Tasmanian artist based in Hobart who has a lifelong love of water and the sea. She is particularly attracted to islands, being surrounded as they are by water, and she is a keen swimmer and scuba diver.
Catherine is drawn to the visual and sensual nature of water, and the feeling of weightlessness when underwater. She is also fascinated by the symbolism of water, its ability to conjure narrative and metaphor, and its connection to the mysterious vast unknown.
Catherine trained in painting and photography at the Tasmanian School of Art. Her work has been exhibited widely since 2003 in 16 solo exhibitions as well as numerous group exhibitions, both locally and further afield.
Catherine’s underwaterscapes look beneath the surface of a range of Tasmanian waters, from deep sea caves and kelp forests to mountain creeks and tarns, and have been selected three times as finalists in the Glover Prize.
Other underwater paintings contain figures; these images often become ambiguous and evocative, akin to dreamscapes or poetry.
Papermaking techniques were explored during a King Island residency in 2011, using local seaweeds and shore plants. After extensive research, developing and refining her process, Catherine now creates unique seaweed paper artworks inspired by sea related narratives. The ‘Neva Reliquary’ series focused on one of the King Island shipwrecks, that of the ‘Neva’, whilst ‘Seal Woman’ was inspired by an Icelandic folk tale.
Underlying themes of separation, loss and transformation continue to inform Catherine’s art practice, which now includes both painting and papermaking.Exhibitions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Penguin Parade, online exhibition
2019 Sea Stories, King Island Cultural Centre
2018 Seal Woman, Red Gallery, Fitzroy North, Victoria
2016 Neva Vestiges, King Island Cultural Centre
Neva Reliquary, Moonah Art Centre, Tasmania
2012 Just Waving, Rosny Barn, Tas
2010 River Turns, Goulburn St Gallery, Hobart
2009 See View, Cultural Centre, King Island
Face Value, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
2007 Still Waters, Galerie Aqui Siam Ben, Vallauris, France
2006 Dancers and Dreamers, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
Testing the Water, BBoss, Hobart
2004 Salted With Fire, Walker St Gallery, Dandenong, Victoria
Off Stage, is theatre ltd, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
2003 Resonance, Republic Bar and Café, North Hobart
Free Flow, True Blue Gallery, Hobart
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award Finalists Exhibition
Poor Souls, King Island Cultural Centre
Door to Door, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Pause Button, The Old Auction House, Kyneton, Victoria
Maritime Art Awards Finalists Exhibition, Melbourne
2019 Vitroform, Lord Coconut, Melbourne
2018 A New Era, King Island Cultural Centre
Maritime Art Awards Finalists Exhibition, Melbourne
Corangamarah Art Prize Finalists Exhibition
2017 Maritime Art Awards Finalists Exhibition, Melbourne
Polar Festival, Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland
Waterways, Hobart
2016 Maritime Art Awards Finalists Exhibition, Melbourne
Bruny Island Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, Bruny Island, Tasmania
Myth and Memory, Beth Hulme Gallery, Fitzroy North, Victoria
2015 Hutchins Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, Hobart
Elements, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
Ten Years, King Island Cultural Centre
2014 Eight Weeks in Xi’an, SNNU, Xi’an, China
2013 Hutchins Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, Hobart
What Lies Beneath, Backyard Gallery, Ballarat
2012 Glover Prize Finalists Exhibition, Evandale, Tas
2011 Fleurieu Water Prize Finalists Exhibition, Goolwa, South Australia
Glover Prize Finalists Exhibition, Evandale, Tas
2010 Menzies Art Exhibition, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
2009 Cricket Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, Sydney Cricket Ground
2008 Endangered. Drawing the Line. Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
2007 Pencil It In, The Salamanca Collection, Hobart
Au Lavoir de Mougins Village, Mougins, France
2006 Arts on Whittle Ward Exhibition, Moonah Arts Centre
Playing Up, Schoolhouse Gallery, Rosny
Glover Prize Finalists Exhibition, Evandale
RESIDENCIES
2017 Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland
2012 Red Gate Gallery, Beijing
2011 King Island Cultural Centre
2008 Red Gate Gallery, Beijing
2007 AIR Vallauris, France
2005 Whittle Ward Palliative Care Unit, Hobart
PUBLIC COMMISSIONS
2019 Big Picture School, Launceston
2010 Queenstown HUB
2006 Geriatric Evaluation and Management Unit, Royal Hobart Hospital
Website
Showing the single artwork
