Catherine

Titus

I have been creative ever since my mom gave me a box of Cray-Pas at the age of three. In my career, I have created greeting card/invitation designs, designed graphics, interiors, and marketing programs, but had always found time to paint for myself.Then the 2017 Tubbs fire in California destroyed my body of work, supplies, and the family European and Asian art collection I inherited. I didn’t know where to restart - how to re-supply my studio, in what direction to even begin? A year later, I challenged myself, first with pastels (the infamous start of my career), then with acrylics on large canvases for the my new home and life in Bainbridge, WA. I now live in Cary!Patterns, colors, shapes, textures – Nature’s palette has become mine. In so many ways, I am really a colorist and that has held true throughout by artistic career.Over the years, I’ve taken photographs to remember passing views - from a busy bike ride through Europe, an interesting color here and there, flowers that wouldn’t last past a bloom, skies, sunsets, and landscapes in moments of light and space. These were often used to translate scenes from photos to paint on canvases, chunks of granite, paper – surfaces that could better express the emotion of the moment the shutter clicked. One day, I began to see more than just snapping an interesting shot. It was a friend who drew to my attention that the photos I would share looked like pieces of art in themselves, but not art photography (cameras and techniques I barely understand). I was setting up shots of tableaux and close-ups of small details to be interpreted in paint or other media in the studio, without really knowing it. Then, abstraction came to my eye: textures, colors, shapes, reorientation of the point of view. A childlike approach to seeing faces in trees and an innate curiosity of the perfection of Nature . . . So when these photographs were loaded in Photoshop to be positioned for painting, I discovered a whole process of creativity, new to me. At first, I thought, “Is this art”? Yet I had created the photograph and I was interpreting what I saw – art? Yes! I now present to you (including original painted pieces) the body of work that I currently inhabit - ever changing and evolving.

I am foremost a colorist. Those colors involve onto the canvas with balance and composition, seemingly on their own! Nature is art and my guide.

Acrylic, Pastels/Oil Pastels, Printmaking

Katetituscreative.com