Exhibition driven by an obsession with colour.

Sydney based artist, Cathy Jack Coupland demonstrates her mastery of colour in her first solo exhibition at Timeless Textiles Gallery in Newcastle, opening in January 2016.

The works in the Colour: Cathy Jack Coupland exhibition range from bold use of bright, solid colours to the subtlest interweaving of contrasting coloured threads.

“I have conversations with colour through my work.”  Cathy said.    “It mesmerizes and teases me and will always be integral to what I do. Its use and interaction, I find enthralling and makes me ask questions of myself.  How far will I go?  How much is too much?”

Cathy often references the work of artists such as Hundertwasser, Sonia Delaunay, John Olsen and Brett Whitely. “Growing up in the Riverina has had a huge impact on how I perceive and use colour”.  Cathy said.  “Changing seasons, fire, drought, landscape and weather are all colours fixed in my memory of home”.  

For this exhibition, Cathy has let her imagination dictate the motifs. For instance, in My Country My Way, she uses blue flooding lines, a bright rainbow, shooting grass and an oversized sun to demonstrate her response to the Dorothea Mackellar poem, ‘My Country’. 

An exchange of work with a felt-making friend has led to a new body of work using simple circles.  “I was given a beautiful piece of bright pink felt with huge bubbles worked into it.” Cathy said.  “I could only stitch around those bubbles.  This is my current addiction!”

Cathy’s works are entirely covered with thousands upon thousands of stitches.  These beautiful works are all free-machine-embroidered, a technique also referred to as ‘thread painting’.   The resulting surface shimmers and undulates with a life all their own.  

“I am thrilled to hold my first solo exhibition at Timeless Textiles in Newcastle.  I want to show how important colour is to me and to my work.  It’s an amazing subject to study and research and it can have a huge impact on our senses and emotions.  It is inspiring and pleasurable for me and I hope, all who view it.”

Colour will run from 20 January 2016 until 14 February 2016 and will officially open by Mary Brown on 21 January.

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