CATHERINE WOO

Tasmanian-based artist, CATHERINE WOO is known for her visually stunning oeuvre of ‘painting with weather’. By using a range of unconventional materials and processes, Woo creates works that are both macro and micro-interpretations of natural phenomena. Her delicate, abstract forms, rendered in intensely detailed surfaces, draw forth various analogies between the body and the environment.

At the core of Woo’s practice is her collaboration and experimentation with natural forces. Elements such as silica, carbon, ash, clay and rust combine or repel each other, crystallise and solidify into patterns that evoke flesh; rivers; plant forms; arteries; cloud patterns. The works could be aerial views of earth, imprints left in sediments at the bottom of a lake or microscopic snapshots from within the body.

Catherine Woo is a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts and has a Graduate diploma of painting from the Australian National University, and a Masters of Fine Art from The University of Tasmania. At the core of her practice is her engagement with the weather as a creative agent in an expanded painting process. Since 1997, she has exhibited across Australia as well as internationally in the United Kingdom, Korea and Hong Kong. She has been included in various major curated shows in Australia, including Handle with Care, Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Australian Art in 2008, Abstract Nature at the Samstag Museum in 2011, and Big Scope - painting and landscape at the Lake Macquarie Regional Art Gallery in 2013.

In 2008 and 2011, Woo was awarded a New Work grant by the Australia Council Visual Art Board. She was also a finalist in the Deakin University Small Sculpture Award in 2016 and the City of Hobart Art Prize in 2002, 2011 and 2012.. She has also completed major commissions for public corporate environments such as Visy Corporation in Melbourne, the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Shanghai, the Crown Casino in Macau, and the China World Trade Centre in Beijing.

Woo’s work has been acquired by a number of significant institutions including Artbank, Sydney; Macquarie Bank Collection, Sydney; Visy Collection, Melbourne; 101 Corporation, Melbourne; Maatsuyker Collection, Tasmania; Maroondah Art Gallery, VIC; RACV Collection, Melbourne; Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong; Nomura International, Hong Kong; China World Trade Centre, Beijing, as well as private collections throughout Australia.