Cathy Yrizarry
Cathy Yrizarry
I am a passionate painter and at times a workaholic. There are many
things I am inspired by. The challenge has always been to find an
image that somehow consolidates the elements I love about landscape,
portrait, and abstract painting. Strangely enough, goldfish, has been
the ongoing subject that is flexible enough to satisfy my appetite for
experimentation while serving as the constant that I need. Because
there is always at least one eye looking out of my paintings,there is
always a presence in whatever world I want to paint. I have
memorized their forms, so it makes it easier to take them out of
context and paint them almost heroically, playing around with scale
and setting, light, color and brushwork.
I think of my paintings metaphorically. The ultimate in romantic
painting would be the attempt to paint heaven. In my latest work, the
fish are leviathons floating through sprawling landscapes. In many
religions, there is a faith that death will bring us to another realm.
The metaphor here is that a creature used to life in water finds
itself in the air looking at a world that has always existed, but
unknown to the creature until that transition. When you imagine any
subject in a radically different context, the subject itself changes
into something else. The fish are my characters in an ongoing,
developing story that is tied to specific painting techniques that are
developing in an abstract way.
To me, art should touch you deeply, by activating your imagination.
There is a lot of art that impresses me technically, but pictures that
keep me thinking about them allow me to to take part in the
inspiration of the artist. It has always been my goal, to communicate
on this level.
Cathy Yrizarry-2012
Education:
Master of Fine Arts, Queens College, NY 1986
Bachelor of Arts, Queens College, NY 1983
Featured on PBS’s “Artworks this Week” 2003
Reviewed in “Baltimore Sun” 2003
Craig Flinner Gallery, Baltimore Maryland, 2003-present