For Catherine Earle, the natural world is endlessly inspiring. Her paintings contain both figurative and abstract elements. Cellular forms drift in and around recognizable plants and animals: the spatial relationships are suggestive of the interplay between the infinitesimal and the universal.
One has a sense of looking at the subject under a microscope while simultaneously viewing it in its entirety. A light seems to glow within the canvas adding to the ethereal quality of the work, while a pairing of muted colors and jewel tones provide a focal point for the viewer.
Catherine aspires to provide a vehicle for perceiving the multiple layers of the world, with a more profound vision, where life expresses itself in a triumphant beauty.
The inspiration for Earle’s paintings began in her early childhood when she was raised on a flower farm of South of France. She was fascinated by the plants and animals, spending hours analyzing their shapes and colors. Her eyes, like a microscope, and her intuitive self, helped her perceive a cellular world, an impression that never left her.
Earle uses layers of acrylic paint to create a subtle sense of light and transparency, usually associated with oils or watercolors. Birds, orbs, stems, and flowers seem to radiate with an inner glow captured by European masters. Indeed, she attended a National Art School of France, l’Ecole des Beaux-Art, in Nimes. She has progressed inexorably through explorations in the abstract, the celestial and cellular, and now is exploring a naturalistic research of colors, light, and form. When she talks about it, she uses words that imply metaphors of birth, rebirth, small messengers of awareness, unseen influence of the microscopic, and the infinite. Her paintings are at once, sophisticated and simple.
Present exhibitions include The Haen Gallery in Asheville NC, The Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene ID, Radius Gallery in Missoula MT and in the past the Union Co-Op, Seattle WA.
She was featured as “Artist in the Studio,“ in the magazine Western Art & Architecture (2015), The Essential Guide, Spokane - Coeur d’Alene – Walla Walla (2016-2017), and in the book 500 Chairs by LarkBooks.