Catherine McWilliams RUA

Catherine McWilliams graduated from Belfast College of Art and has been exhibiting since 1961. From 1964 she combined painting with teaching until 1990. In 1986 she opened the Cavehill Gallery with Joseph McWilliams where she exhibits regularly with other invited artists.

'My work has almost always been concerned with either landscape or figures in landscape where I hope the expressive handling of paint is the predominant feature. The Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland and the Cooley Mountains on the other side of Carlingford Lough dominated my world as a child and because of this the mountain is often present in my work, the hills surrounding Belfast, the mountains and bogs of the Glens of Antrim, Donegal and Sligo.

In the seventies and eighties my work vacillated between the urban and rural landscape, I painted a dark and gloomy Belfast as in: "SchoolGirl" 1972 "Girl with Birds and Dying Flowers" 1983, or escaped to the fields and beaches of Cushendall as in: "Peahen" 1973 "The Field, Cushendall" 1985

In the late eighties I began a series of interiors using still life as a starting point. These led to commissioned illustrations from Appletree press but living under Cave Hill meant the landscape was never far from my thoughts as in "Still life with plant and Cave Hill" 1997. Then a stay in County Sligo culminated in an exhibition at Sligo Art Gallery in 1999. Dr. S.B. Kennedy described these paintings as being "boldly gestural and harking back to Van Gogh." Back home in North Belfast I continued to paint the historic Cave Hill (it was where the United Irishmen met in 1798). I might describe the Cave Hill as my Mont St.Victoire but my expressionistic manner of work owes more to Van Gogh than Cézanne. To work directly from observation is generally the starting point for me, the subject matter is important to me in the beginning but the paint then takes over, leading me. In 2005 whilst arranging a follow up show to the retrospective of '04 at Clotworthy Arts Centre, the Rookery in the grounds captivated me. See "Rooks and other birds brochure." I've continued with the Rookery theme for this exhibition "A Northern Palette" but now I sense the influence of Max Ernst in these recent pieces. You'll see that, not only have Blackstaff Press used "Roosting Rooks at Clotworthy 2006" for the cover of a collection of poetry by John Hewitt but that "Books Ireland" are also using it in their current edition.'