Catherine Kingham

Light Journeys

These works reflect the wonder, awe, terror, love and loss I experienced during the long journey building the capacity to walk from my place in Kingston to my brother’s in Narrabundah. 

The light in the paintings is an expression of the joy in seeing the sun rise after interminable night and of my eternal gratitude to my brother and best friend, Richard Campbell Kingham, who made that possible.

Each walk and painting was completed in the hours either side of dawn, as these are for me the hours of the most drama, when there is the most profound perception of change. Out of stillness, space and silence, black, depthless silhouettes slowly vivify in a secret unfolding of colour, sound and motion.

To continually see the world fresh, and to express the exquisite beauty of the transient and the unrepeatable is my ongoing quest. In setting aside the opposing notions of inner world and environment, natural and built, animate and inanimate; concrete, camellias and carports reveal themselves as all dead and all alive, all resting in shadow, all dancing in light.

About the Artist

Catherine was born and raised in Canberra. She began her visual art practice as a teenager, exploring different media and styles as she completed her schooling and a Bachelor of Arts at the Australian National University and Uppsala University, Sweden. She subsequently travelled extensively through Scandinavia, Europe, north Africa, Asia and Australia before completing a medical degree at the University of New South Wales. After working in the field of emergency medicine for several years in regional and rural New South Wales, she developed a debilitating illness, which ultimately led to her retirement from medical practice. 

Her brother Richard assisted in her return to Canberra, where she lived with him and his young family for a period before settling into her own home. With Richard's ongoing support, and that of a wonderful group of women at the local community garden, she slowly gained the strength to begin walking. Starting with a dawn journey to her letterbox each day, she gradually increased the distance, until after six years she made it all the way to Richard's. The time together that Easter Sunday and in the following weeks remains especially treasured, as Richard was by then battling his own severe illness and shortly after passed away.

Catherine's works have always been deeply rooted in place, however they are not only a visual record of her external world. Informed by her early training in Jungian dream analysis, the symbolically manifest emotion enceinte in both her waking and night travel flows through her work in a confluence of internal and external landscape.

Ink wash was her primary medium for many years, but due to the physical restrictions of her condition, this practice was no longer possible. After a period of making no art at all, she realised she could paint on her Surface Pro tablet. Digital painting allowed her to both work in a greater variety of positions and to save work and palettes wet which was incredibly helpful initially when she could only manage a few minutes a day.

Catherine has sold works privately, through Pink Flamingo Interiors in Pialligo and at local events to raise money for the Kingston Organic Community Garden Canberra refugees support project. She has also provided illustrations for a recently published volume of poetry.