Cathy Vey
- Name
- Cathy Vey
- Location
- Monroe, NY, US
- Websites
- http://www.myspace.com/lsdeimos http://www.lsdeimos.net
- Influences
- Anslem Kiefer, Joan Snyder
- Media
- acrylic, mixed media
Biography
Hi everyone. My name is Cathy and I'm 24 years old. I haven't been on here in a while but I hope to be on here more. Anyways I graduated with a bfa BFA major in painting and drawing and being absurd. If you have any questions about painting and acyrlics feel free to ask!
I'm posting my artist statement/ grad school essay here to explain myself.
I crave for things through life much of the time, as I'm sure many have this insatiable need. I find that art satisfies this as such to some degree. Throughout my college experience, I found that conversation with peers and professors were important to my development, both enlightening me and helping me to ascertain my own positions about art as well as my philosophy about life. It has been exciting and satisfying to see what others are doing with their work, and talking with them about it, hopefully contributing to their development as well.
I wish to create an easy exchange, which seems to be lacking in the realm between the viewing public and the artist. It is not true that a work that can reach people on an emotional level be kitsch, and a work that is intellectually minded be elitist. Personally I feel that these two opposites can be together, and in fact many opposites can be combined. I enjoy presenting connections and truths through my work. Continuing my studies will help me solidify and balance my ideas, and the dialog with peers and professors will help to clarify my work to a greater extent.
Art is an obsession, as I do not separate life from art. Working at my studio I paint with determination and the realization that my art is worth more than just being looked at, and for me it is absorbing and compelling. When I am home I still think about art, always drawing, working and analyzing. I live with the thought that everything is there for enlightment or inspiration. Everything that is possible intertwines at the conception of art making. My paintings originate and are inspired from my interests, ideas and emotions. Currently I am working with the concept of identity through the characters I create the context or situations that they exist in. Throughout my paintings, I combine broad concepts such as fear, death, history, religion, rituals, dreams, sexuality, and spirituality, and within these large themes, are veiled smaller ideas. I hope to make my paintings cryptic enough to allow the viewer to enter this world I have created and come to their own conclusions. I want others to witness these characters and their states of existence, in their expressions and etherealness. Narrative is a very important aspect of my work. While some works originate through written stories in which I illustrate a certain scene, similarly, I also work from memories, experiences, dreams, fantasies, and what tales others tell me.
I have the urge to experiment constantly relying on my intuition as well as happenstance. My ideas flow well between each other, but the addition of new inspirations and concepts are always arriving. I enjoy how open the art world is in this age, where it seems possible to utilize a mixture of sources and references without the constraints of a singular style or format. It is lovely to reach into the past and connect to the present, drawing parallels of style and thought, and attempting to make it almost timeless.
Many are surprised when I say I work with acrylics, as they look like oils. Working with acrylics allows me to proceed in painting with speed, as well as building up a multitude of layers. I acquired a thickness of the paint with gel mediums while producing a translucency allowing the previous layers to show through. This created a ghostly effect that is important in translating my ideas, adding a visual "otherworldliness" to the characters existence. I enjoy working with grounds in the early stages of painting; manipulating canvas, collage, and mixed media to bring amazing textures that are a challenge to work with, but add an element of chance which I enjoy. As I put colors on these random grounds I never know how it will react with the texture and the color underneath. Though this entire process, I communicate, I live though art, and so I exist.
