Cath Sheard Art

Tag: exhibition

  • Rouge Poire / Bleu Poire for Pocket Rocket exhibition

    The Pocket Rockets exhibition, being held in Dunedin, is only about 10 days away now. I am sending off 4 works to organiser Tanya Dann in Monday’s courier post. I seem to have a few exhibitions coming up at the moment, so I am sending two older works and two new ones. The two newly completed works are part of the ongoing Pears series, in this case Bleu Poire and Rouge Poire. The photograph of the blue background is pretty accurate but the other one is hopeless. I have had a few attempts at getting a decent pic but for some reason the camera just won’t pick up the yellow colour of the background. In the photo it looks very washed out but it is actually quite a vibrant yellow. My camera is normally really good so not sure what is going on. Ah well, anyway … these are both 10×10″ in acrylic on gallery wrap canvas.

    Last weekend I decided to have a very brutal clean-up in my studio. Tony took a carload of junk away, not all from my studio I hasten to add, but some of it sure was.  I had a wee pile of old paintings that I hadn’t sold, and in many cases had never shown – none of them fitted in with what I do now. They took up a lot of room and, more importantly, every time I went out there they were looking at me. Some I felt I could recycle. The others? I put black paint all over them so no one could grab them, and Tony took them to the rubbish dump. It feels *so* good to be rid of them – like there’s this huge weight off my shoulders. I hadn’t realised just how oppressive they had become. Now when I go to my studio I just feel excited, which is how it should be.

  • Patea Freezing Works – Where’s my knife?

    I am back to my Freezing Works series; I need to have 3 works finished and sent off by the end of the month. They’re heading to the “One Size Fits All” exhibition at the Thornton Gallery in Hamilton in August. Each work has to be 10″ square and that suits be just fine for this series. I always enjoy working at that size anyway as it suits the way I work in winter – sitting down at my office desk with the heater on. In winter it is simply far too cold to go to my outside studio and stand at an easel. The studio used to be the caravan shed so it has corrugated iron walls, a concrete floor on dirt, and no insulation at all. Freezing in winter and hot as heck in summer. What a wimp, I know!

    These three works are loosely based on photos by New Zealand photographer Aaron Cubis. You can see some of his amazing work here on Flickr. I started with loose washes and runs of Golden Fluid Acrylics; Napthol red medium, Quinacridone magenta & crimson, and Phthalo green (blue) and Permanent green light. From there I have just played around, trying to capture the feel of years of peeling paint and rusty metals. What I loved about Aaron’s photos was the vivid contrast of the red and green paint on the walls and this is what I have tried to capture. This is probably going to be the most realistic of the three works as I tend to loosen up as I get into a subject painting by painting.

    Photo by Aaron Cubis

    The clean-up of the Freezing Works following the fire a couple of years ago is 95% complete now; the landscape looks so different with all those buildings gone. I guess the biggest impact on the landscape was when the chimney came down. I am happy to see it all gone; as I come down the hill into Patea the view out to the Tasman Sea is spectacular. Of course the landscape will never be as it was 100s of years ago, because of power lines, house sat the beach and so forth, but it does give a better idea of just how beautiful the untouched landscape must have been here pre-settlement.

    Where's my knife? 10×10" acrylic.

  • Newspaper article

    The Wanganui Chronicle ran a quarter page article today on the pieces I have created for the LEGATO exhibition in Italy. Wonderful coverage. They even used my artwork for the full colour banner on the top of the front page!

  • Legato postcards

    With only a month left till we head to Italy for the LEGATO exhibition at Cassino, I have completed 60 postcards. These will be posted from Casino to all the wonderful people who have bought $35 shares in my trip. Once we get back they’ll also get a colour newsletter about the trip, and by Christmas 2010 will receive a 6×6″ painting as well. I want people who have supported me to feel like they’ve got real value for money.

  • New paintings – sunset at the tidal pool

    I have just sent a new series of four paintings off to the “all things small and beautiful” exhibition in Tauranga. All works had to be 10×10″ – one of my favorite sizes to work in. The four works are all very similar in color and style and are all titled ‘sunset at the tidal pool’. They are loosely based on memories of seeing Dale Chihuly glass at an exhibition Tony and I went to in Hamilton on our honeymoon some 15 years ago. The sheer wonder of seeing his work in the flesh is still with me today. Dale’s incredible work can be seen here.