In art, as in most things, the work evolves over time. When an art practice consists of a grounding principal of exploration based in curiosity, we can expect the work to change with regularity. That said, there is a consistent ‘feeling’ about the work.
I began painting professionally in 2017 with little to no art background. Years before, the first large painting was done on a 48x48 inch MDF board I managed to dig out of my garage. That board had previously been used as a tabletop. Desperate to paint something, I was in the middle of a massive life shift and needed help coping. That night, a glass of wine, a bit of crying, and hours of painting helped me through. That first painting was a lot. Dark shades of brown and blue, textural whites scratched across the surface like scars, abstract shapes and what looked like a giant black and blue deformed face. It was both a self portrait and a statement about the future. Over the following years I painted sporadically in the midst of divorce, raising teenagers, and working in retail while going to school. In 2017 at 47, there was little to keep me from painting professionally. My children were all adults and on to their own lives. Over the years there were other creative outlets but they never seemed to satisfy for long. In the early days of painting, not just to cope but finally for pleasure , I explored pure abstract expression in organic, nondescript brush strokes and pours. The process was always to pour first and allow the pour to create the structure which would become the underpainting. That is still true today.
My First Studio
In early 2020, just as COVID 19 began sweeping the nation, I decided I needed more space and made the move to my very own studio in an old office building downtown. Here, I was able to focus for hours at a time on large paintings and grid installations.
As time progressed and I explored more, I found I preferred more minimal shapes and limited color choices within the paintings. I am often asked why certain colors are chosen over others and why certain shapes. The truth is, I don’t know. I only move forward with what is most appealing to me and discard what feels like it isn’t working at the time.
My art practice today is grounded in principals of curiosity, balance, and connectedness. Although there can be balance in chaotic abstract presentations, it isn’t what I prefer so I continue to work a painting until it has a certain balance which I would describe as a ‘peaceful order’ about it. There is no pre-determined vision, only a feeling…I know how I want it to feel when it happens and not before. Prior to that moment, I only know something isn’t right.
2020-2021
The work during this period was marked by experimenting with previously unused color combinations, textures, and a mixture of substrates. This is when I first began using layers of sheer color brushed on over under-paintings. This technique would become an integral part of my work moving forward.
In 2021 I found a studio apartment near my home which I rented and used as my new studio. This meant nearly no commute time and gave me more opportunity to work at all hours.
That summer, my partner and I took a road trip through West Texas to New Mexico and Colorado. The work created that year was decidedly different. The shapes were more sculptural, and the colors more earthy. It had a sense of that place. The collection of work which came out of that summers travels was called Mine. It featured large works with border-like enclosures in lighter tones.
This series also included a collection of smaller studies on paper with geometric forms and more saturated color, many with black or white accents. The smaller works did not contain the typical enclosures like the larger works from that series but were similar in feeling. Again, these had a sense of place.
At left:
When is the mothership arriving?
This is a mixed media painting from the first series of work which came out of the COVID era of 2020 and the new downtown studio. This is where pours and geometric form along with earthy texture began to appear in the work.
Cat Huss Art Studio 2022 at right….
Continued work on large canvases and grid installations. Two collections of work were completed that year: Zoom and By the Moonlight. These were shown at The Other Art Fair presented by Saatchi Art and Art Santa Fe.
In recent, the work has become more and more minimal, earthy, and directed. Not directed in the way one would imagine. I always think of an interview I saw once with Agnes Martin discussing how her work comes about and she said she doesn’t know what to do so she sits in a chair in her studio and waits for a postage stamp sized image to appear in her head. Once that happens, she knows what to paint. Unfortunately, my finished product is not nearly as knowable. Once I start painting, it will develop on its own. It is an intuitive process. Each action elicits another action to follow and so on. There are periods where the work evokes the feeling of landscape, and/or a sense of place. That is not planned but as I spend more time traveling and out in nature, nature tends to find its way into my work.
From 2021-2022 I worked on several large commissions for hospitality spaces and created collections of work which were shown at The Other Art Fair presented by Saatchi Art and Art Santa Fe. I began work with art consultancies in Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, and New York. During that time, I experimented with the use of photography combined with painting and continued to improve and evolve my original techniques.
This time marked a turning point in my work. I settled into a regularly used color palette and process. Pour, add structure, pour, more structure, then layers of sheer color and more matte color and borders over the top for larger works. The smaller studies on paper had the same process but rarely included borders and were less structured.
Oftentimes one or more ‘enclosures’ are found around the edges of the paintings, making it appear like a window or portal. This may be my way of giving the painting a sense of order or a certain directedness it doesn’t have otherwise. In the early days of doing this, I saw it as my way of expressing a particular point of view….. a way of telling a specific story, setting the stage, so to speak, but now I think the explanation is simpler than that. It’s just what I do….no reason behind it. It’s what feels right. The enclosures, I now realize, are part of the balance-seeking process. They give order and peace to something which could otherwise feel chaotic. I think a painting is finished when it feels like a meditation, a deep breath, a moment of peace.
In 2023, I moved my studio back home in an effort to streamline and unite art practice and life. I am currently working on new paintings which will release in the Spring of 2026.