Melbourne based Cathy Quinn describes her works as investigations into the fluid relationship between landscape and introspection. “For me, painting is an escape – a means of transporting oneself into another realm – the state of flow,” she relays. Her art communicates a visual experience beyond the strictures of traditional landscape painting. The logic of reproducing realistic renditions has been abandoned. Quinn’s paintings are not ‘windows’ into nature but rather immersive expressions of its growth and organic intricacies. Specifics of time and place are dissolved. “I aim to capture the transient beauty of a scene, the natural world’s fleeting moments.”
Animated, spontaneous brushwork infuses scenes depicting essentially pond imagery with a radiance of immersive intimacy. Asked about her inspiration for such Quinn imparted that she visited Monet’s water gardens in Giverny, France before heading to the Venice Art Biennale this year. “The place was incredibly populated by tourists, but I found I could silence the crowds by withdrawing into my sketching and immersing myself within the scenery. These images have stayed with me, the experience imprinted in my mind,” Quinn tells. “The funny thing is, I had not anticipated doing these ‘water garden’ pond paintings. The exhibition was originally intended to be purely imaginative landscapes exemplified by its earlier Azure Horizons and Moonlight Mountain works, each dripping in a fantasy of lushness and intense hues”.
As was Monet’s, Quinn’s art is painted impressionistically, evoking the fleeting, ever changing nuances of light, colour and movement. “I aim to express the profound, transformative experience of being fully present within the landscape,” she iterates. A synthesis of inner and outer realms, the paintings encourage the viewer to share her immersive encounters and extend one’s perception beyond manifested form, thereby discovering transcendence in an optimistic affinity with the natural world’s rhythms.
JACQUELINE HOUGHTON Having grown up in Melbourne, Cathy Quinn subsequently spent many years living in London and Hong Kong. She has been an exhibiting artist since 1985. Her training includes: BA (Fine Art) at Chisholm Institute (now Monash University) 1986; Christies Education, Australian Art, 1997; La Trobe College of Education, Studio & Practice Development, 2010. In England, Quinn worked for London Contemporary Art and Grenville Gibbs Corporate Art. Upon returning to Melbourne, she became the Australian representative for London Contemporary Art. Quinn managed the National Gallery of Victoria Business Council and has volunteered her services to Christies, Hong Kong and the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria. Her awards include: Invited Finalist Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, 2019; Finalist St Kevins Art Show, 2018; Winner St Kevins Art Show – best modern painting, 2016; awarded High Commendation Lucato Prize, Chisholm Institute, 1985
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