WAAC Member & Artist Catharine Somerville exhibits at at Gallery 1313, participating in a group show “Standpoint”
1313 Gallery (1313 Queen St W, Toronto)
October 25 – November 5, 2023
Opening Reception at 6:30pm
Catharine Somerville: Into the Wild
By Ed Winters
The painting of paintings takes up the notion of landscape as metaphor, pointing us toward correspondences that serve to make artistic sense of the world in which we find ourselves. That artistic sense is different in kind from the truths we search for in science. Trees do not dance and sky over water is not melancholic.
Only through art can we see ourselves as belonging in a world in which these imaginary empathies tell ‘truths’ about our condition. Being called to paint is a form of witness. The observation of an artist like Catharine, calls upon a developed sensitivity.
Being imaginary, it develops a view onto the world. This, I am sure, is what is historically meant by an ‘artist’s vision’.
And now, looking at these paintings as the carefully drafted compositions of winter scenes intended to be seen as inner landscapes, we feel ourselves persuaded by the vision of the self as a solitary wanderer through the wilderness we must accept as our spiritual home. Into the Wild. It is a beautiful collection of work.