I hope that each artwork I create invites you to reconnect with your own senses - to notice more, feel more, and remember what lights you up.
Hello, and thanks for coming over to find out more about me and my artwork. I’m Cath Duncan - a mixed media visual artist living and working in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
I'm intrigued by the human capacity to remain connected to sensory delight, belonging, and hope in the face of grief and fear.
My paintings and creative processes are deeply influenced by my first career as a grief support therapist and my own life experiences with grief and fear. Immigration, chronic illness, disability, transracial adoption, and organ transplantation have all deepened my interest in how our relationships with each other, with nature, and with ourselves are formed and re-formed - coming apart and being put back together again in new ways - over and over again.
I’m inspired by the things in life that offer wonder, delight, awe, and hope, and build our resilience to keep trying to create beauty, even though it might not work out and could all be lost.
Layers of colour, texture, story, and meaning
In my studio, just like in therapeutic conversations, I don’t know in advance where we’ll end up. Instead, the visuals and meanings within my artworks gradually emerge through layered cycles of doing, observing, and reflecting. Poetry forms an important companion in this process, helping me to articulate what the artworks seem to be reaching towards.
Nature is both my creative muse and my sanctuary
In nature I find the textures, colours, and shapes that I often borrow from to create my artworks. Nature also offers me the sustaining metaphors, wisdoms, and feelings of connectedness and vitality that layer my artworks with meaning.
Multi-sensory materials and a creative process that mirror grief and embody hope
I work across various mediums to create artworks that are as rich and layered as the sensory moments and emotional experiences they’re born from, and I often work with collage and recycled materials.
I want my process of making to feel as immersive and meaningful as the experiences that spark the work. By painting, tearing, layering, and reassembling, my creative process mirrors the falling apart of grief experiences, and embodies a process of regeneration - an affirmation that beauty can grow out of what has been broken or lost, and that personal, social, and ecological renewal are always possible.
I love the idea that a painting can act as a portal - evoking the memory of a moment that felt expansive or grounding, and bringing that feeling back into your home and life.
Exhibitions
I’ve shown my art in exhibitions in South Africa, the UK, and the Netherlands, and sold my paintings to private collectors in South Africa, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, and the USA. Originally from South Africa, I create (and ship!) my art from my home studio in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
You can find details of current exhibitions here.
“I look at your works hanging in my rooms every day and can almost hear the movement of the waves crashing on the beach. They occupy pride of place.”
— Dr Trevor Gerntholtz, South Africa
Art and therapy
Over the years I’ve developed as an artist through selected private courses and mentorships, including programs through Newlyn School of Art (UK), The Peter Clarke Art Centre (South Africa), David Mankin (UK), Nicholas Wilton (USA), and Alice Sheridan (UK).
My art practice is also strengthened by my first career in Grief Support Therapy. I have a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work (University of Calgary, Canada) and, until 2020, I worked in grief support, co-founded the Creative Grief Studio with Kara Jones, and authored two grief support workbooks.
In addition to my professional training and experience, my work has always drawn on my own experiences of learning to live wholeheartedly after - and also with - great loss. Some of the loss and grief experiences that shaped my therapeutic work and continue to influence my art-making include vision impairment, hearing impairment, living with 2 rare incurable illnesses, and pregnancy loss. I’m also a kidney transplant recipient, immigrant, and transracial adoptive parent… experiences filled with joys that I’m very grateful for, and which also include layers of grief for our family.
You can hear me sharing more about my story in this conversation about navigating rare and chronic conditions with creativity and grace.
I’m often asked how my visual impairment affects my art-making, so I’ve written a little about that here.
“Your art reminds me of possibilities, more beach beyond the bluff, the feel of the wind in my hair, the feel of the salt air on my face, the grounded feeling I have every time my feet are on the sand and in the sea.”
Interested in owning some of my art?
I’d love to help you choose art that resonates with your own stories and hopes, and that you’ll love having in your life.
If you’re in the Netherlands and would like to visit me at my studio, I’d be happy to make an appointment to do that. Just email me at cath@cathduncan.com or message me on Whatsapp: +31 6 27 97 73 66. I’m also very happy to hop on a video call with folks who live further afar.
You can also have a look at my latest artworks and other artwork collections, find out how you can commission a meaningful custom artwork, or order fine art prints or greeting cards with my prints of my art.
