View Catherine Prescott's Resume Here.

"Painting is a way of making something my own.  It’s natural for me to turn things that move me into an image, whether I am reading, thinking, or looking.  Degas wrote that it is all very well to paint what you see, but it is better to paint what you see in your head; then you will be free from the “tyranny of nature.”  As carefully as I look, I’m not painting what I see.  I alter, reduce, obliterate, or exaggerate each thing that I encounter and at the same time try to make it convincing. 

All of these works have a narrative, but they are not illustrations or symbols of a story.  They are what they look like.  John Updike wrote, “Precision is where the passion begins.”  The act of painting is so private and so difficult that I can find my way only by being committed to changing and changing, painting and re-painting, until I see precisely what I care about. 

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t want to be known.  C.S. Lewis wrote,  “We read to know we’re not alone.”  I look at paintings to know I’m not alone.  If I can take something visible and make it communicate something invisible, I can hope to trigger recognition in another person."

-Catherine Prescott

Seraphin Gallery  l  Contemporary Philadelphia Art Gallery and Art Consultant 
1108 Pine St., Philadelphia, PA  l  (215) 923-7000  l  seraphin@seraphingallery.com