Apophenia

Finding pattern in randomness

On December 1, 2023 I will have my solo exhibition at Tew Galleries in
Atlanta. This December will mark my 12th year of being represented by Tew
Galleries and I could not be more excited than to mark it with this current work.
I am always the most in love with what I am working on today in my
studio, but some of these paintings have simply given me a new take on that
thought. I have lived with them and worked with them, yet they feel new every
time I look at them and for me; this tells me I have turned a corner that I had
no idea even existed in my practice.

This year has been one of really finding myself and discovering that the
simplicity in what I am doing with the paint itself is really what drives my
motivation. Layering in paint has been an impetus of mine for years, mainly to
soften and lose edges, but this year I began to add patterned layers of paint
to my work, randomly and superfluously with a somewhat reckless abandon. One on
top of another, building a chaotic surface that finds its definition in the
lack of recognizable edges giving it a softness that is more arresting than before.

 There is something a bit unexpected as each layer can appear 
wonderful for a moment and then be completely off based in the next. It is this
precocious unpredictability that I love. There is  simply no way of repeating a
surface, each one becomes something I have never seen before and the uniqueness
of the paint itself has driven this new series of paintings. In the heat of the
moment when painting I am constantly wrestling with the balance of creating an intention of some sort, but also with the fact that this really is a painting, and moreover,
it is about paint, how it lays, how it transitions, how it builds and coalesces
with the surface and how to make that all be a cohesive and direct intention in
the final work. I hope these paintings will emote some of the feelings that  I have experienced in the process of making of these works to the viewer.

If you are in the Atlanta area, please come by and see my show, it is always so nice to see work in person and really get to study it and spend time with it. It will open December
1, 2023,  and I plan to be present and would love to meet and greet everyone.

I am posting a few of the pieces that will be in the show.

Take care,

Cathy Hegman  

 

Big Skirt Hummingbirds oil by Cathy Hegman 36×30

Waking Dreams Angels Passing oil  by Cathy Hegman 48.5×48.5 

 

Big Skirt Lessons of the Paperwhites oil  by Cathy Hegman 37×47 

 

Big Skirt The Dresser oil by Cathy Hegman36x24

Waking Dreams Pink Canoes oil by Cathy Hegman 57x 47

 

 

*all images are copyright protected by Cathy Hegman and not for reproduction in any form without permission of the artist.