Meet the Printmaker

Cath is a former teacher and now a full-time artist printmaker based in Whitley Bay. Cath’s love of colour is reflected in her bright, bold hand-screen printed art works and textile products. She says: “In my work I take detailed drawings down to their most basic form and then play around with pattern and texture. All shapes are cut from paper and then a screen is made and colours layered to create the print. My influences come from vintage children’s illustrations, artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and more recently print makers such as Jane Ormes.”

Cath’s screenprint for Endless forms most Beautiful, ‘Let me see you shake your tail feather’ features the Black Grouse (Lyrurus Textrix), once one of the fastest declining bird species in the UK and on list of endangered species. However, with the dedicated effort of conservation groups over the last two decades the dramatic decline has not only been halted but turned around and the numbers in the Northern Pennines are slowly rising.

“It amused me to see the over the top flamboyance of the male with his distinctive red wattle over the eye and lyre shaped tail which fans out to show white under tail feathers, in comparison to the understated elegance of small brown-grey female.”