A little bit about this art show and the artist from Alan Dearling
Cat Byrne website: https://www.catherinebyrne.co.uk
At the new exhibition, Cat’s extraordinary pulsating artworks are all created using acrylic inks, created on Bristol board. All drawn with a dip pen and a brush.
Cat/Catherine says: “I’m an artist and lifelong bumblecat based in northern England. I once had a career in graphic and web design, but I packed it all in to draw silly twisted things because life is too damn short for not doing what you love.”
I’m well-impressed with the millions of circles…the concept…the obsessive nature about the execution. The swirling patterns create enormous vibrancy and visual energy. The colours, especially the rich use of gold, remind me of many of the works of the Austrian artists, Gustav Klimt and Hundertwasser. I bought a couple of pieces of Cat’s art from the exhibition on its opening day. It’s really quite a trip.
“Well damn this one took a long time.
I wanted to challenge myself to make something super inefficient. For the lolz. And boy, was it a challenge and a half. Not that I got bored, on the contrary… I really really enjoyed it. But I got restless. I have all these ideas swirling around in my head, and I knew if I put this stonker of a piece down, I’d never finish it.
Anyway, 3 weeks later (or was it 4?) it’s finished.
It’s A3…Mental.
This is my flagship piece in on the exhibition wall at the show located in the Tod Information Centre, ‘Visit Todmorden’.”
As I have mentioned, I gave a little support by buying two of her originals. The one with the title of the show was Cat’s original logo designed for the exhibition.
Here’s a bit of background about Cat. Excerpts from ‘About’ posted on her website, in her own words:
“SHORT VERSION
1. English people think I’m Canadian.
2. Americans think I’m English.
3. I’m French.
4. French people think I’m English.
5. Some people call me Canadian Cat.”
Cat Byrne calls the next, her SOPORIFIC VERSION of bits and bobs from her life so far. Some samples:
Cat says: “I grew up mostly adjusting to whatever new land my parents had moved us to… the USA, Japan, France, Kenya, New Zealand, Jordan and Switzerland.
By the time I was of age to start making my own way in life, I was living in Geneva. From there I moved to nearby Vevey to study graphic design at the Art Center (Europe). But 6 months prior to graduating, the school shut down unexpectedly, due to lack in industry funding. In order to finish my Bachelors Degree – without needing to start over again – my only choice was to move to California and finish my studies at the parent campus in Pasadena. So it was, in 1996 I graduated from the Art Center College of Design, having just turned 21, with a BFA in Communication Design.”
“While in Los Angeles, I mainly worked as a web designer for a software company, and also did a bit of freelancing on the side. But LA wasn’t for me, and in 2000, wanting to put an end to a really difficult part of my life, I ran north to Santa Cruz where I freelanced, enjoying the better life. Nonetheless after just 3 years, the travel bug got me once again, and (in a move English people will never understand) I headed to Manchester in England.
For the weather and the food, OBVIOUSLY.”
“And also because a friend from my childhood days in Japan had set up a web hosting business, and wanted to expand into web design. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. The original plan had been to volunteer in the WWOOF organic farming program and travel around Europe (with my freelancing laptop) until I found somewhere I wanted to settle.
So I stayed in Manchester as the Creative Director of Sputnik Internet (now called Sputnik Digital) for 5 years, during which time I met my husband. In 2008 I stepped down to freelance again, to have more flexibility to spend time with the imminent new arrival in our family, by which time we’d moved to West Yorkshire – first Hebden Bridge, and then later Todmorden.”
“Perfectionism. It’s both a gift and a curse. It can push you to constantly improve yourself, and it also can stop you starting anything because you’re not up to the standard you want to be at. That had been my mental block for many years, and nothing was ever going to change, until I did something drastic about it. So in October 2014 – age 38 – I started drawing again, in earnest.
I set myself the goal of making 1000 drawings – no matter how long it took, and no matter how rubbish they were. At first I was drawing alongside my design work… and finally in 2017, I dropped the design business altogether. Financially, it was hard… leaving an established and successful career, and jumping into a notoriously poorly paid industry, during a period of time when many people have less money to spend.
I started a few comics of my own, helped run the Calder Valley Scribblers – a local comic collective – and organised Scribblecon, an annual grassroots comic-con here in Todmorden.
2024
Picked up Japanese woodblock printing, carried on with German, learned to write Hiragana and Katakana again. Started writing a local true crime book. Diagnosed with ASD Level 1 (Aspergers).
2025
Obsessed with writing my book, and started writing a second. Enjoying hiking again.”
And that seems to take us up towards the current exhibition: ‘The Art of Inefficiency’.
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