Staff Spotlight: Catharine Davison
Catharine Davison will be teaching our 3 day Painitng Course from September this year.
'I am thrilled to have been appointed the role of Painting Course Leader at Leith school of Art and I look forward to taking up this post from September 2019. For the past three years I have been enjoying teaching on the Friday General Drawing and Painting course and also I have been responsible for the design and delivery of the art and design component of the University’s International Foundation programme. Although I have really enjoyed the intensity of the one-day course at Leith, I am very much looking forward to having the benefit of the concentrated teaching arrangements over three days per week and working with Matt Storstein on a Wednesday.
My professional practices in drawing and painting explore working on location where a prevailing relationship with Edinburgh’s urban landscape is imperative. This challenges me to develop forms of creative expression through the ‘plein air’ tradition of working directly in landscape. I exhibit my work nationally in selected and curated group exhibitions. I am represented by the Open Eye Gallery, where I will have my fourth solo exhibition in 2020. Most recently I had the excellent news that I have a painting hung in this years’ Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (detail below). I have won several awards, most recently the W Gordon Smith Award for painting in 2018. In 2014, I was delighted to win the Lynn Painter-Stainers’ Prize, a major national award for creative representational painting at the Mall Galleries.
My commitment and curiosity for learning about art has been an inherent part of my life and my involvement in education has been interconnected. It was once suggested to me that it would be helpful if I was to find time to think about something other than drawing and painting; since buying a house at the foot of the Pentland Hills, where I share a garden studio with my partner Robbie Bushe, I have become a really keen gardener, however, it has become apparent that this is really another form of creative expression where I am composing a three dimensional picture with planting.
I believe my down-to-earth nature helps to cultivate a supportive learning environment, where creativity is underpinned by an enjoyment for working hard.'
If you would like to find out more about Ctaharine and her work then head over to her website: www.catharinedavison.uk