Cathy Read
Reach out and feel time, smell the past, taste memories, hear voices of loved ones and embrace a rich world of sensory exploration.
My experience of life is dominated by sensory awareness. sounds, tastes, sights, smells and touch all colour my life experience. Sometimes they cross over, I can taste colours and hear pictures. I want you, the audience to experience the multisensory delight of my art. Each painting is a journey from an experience in the real world to an abstracted vision. After the painting is done, I sit with it and it tells me a story but that story is only the beginning.
I begin with the visual. Buildings reflect the dreams of the people who create them. Adopting an abstract style, I capture that dreamlike quality. A masked linear structure holds together fluid and energetic paint and ink, all loosely applied. The ink, especially, allows mini explosions of colour to evolve during the drying process.
In the paintings, I look for perspectives that convey the scale of the buildings. That sense of Awe at their sheer size. By experimenting with angles, foreshortening and shapes, I seek the essence of the vision behind their creation. Recreating that childhood sense of looming where the building feels like it will topple on you.
I look for contrasts where they occur: such as new buildings, with clean shapes and lines, alongside old decaying ones, or how, in older buildings, the geometry is softened by nature over time.
Interpreting the architecture, I find patterns of construction, flaws, wear and tear. Making features of the mundane and ordinary, the signs of the people who occupied the spaces. Mankind likes to make its mark, especially with public developments. People living and working in the spaces further modify the environment. The buildings are occupied and altered from subtle wear and tear to major remodelling.
In 2026, I began creating a multi sensory experience to accompany these paintings. Drawing on my therapy background, I'm developing ways to recreate these images as a tactile experience using laser cutting on wood enhanced with various materials and found objects. Using video of locations, filming the painting process and readings of my writings, I'm able to create an auditory connection to the paintings along with additional visual stimulus.
Smell is a powerful sense and can instantly connect with nearly forgotten memories. Using Scents pulled from the locations as well as essential oils and scented plants.
Taste is proving a practical challenge, but I'm working on it.
Lived Experience
The artist dream dominated my childhood, then life got messy in my teens. Growing up, money was always tight. A background of rising unemployment, benefits and well meaning family and friends persuaded me to “be realistic and find a proper job”.
Settling on Occupational Therapy, I trained in Oxford, and started work. Eventually specialising in paediatrics. I specialised in Sensory Integration Therapy working with children with developmental Coordination Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder and Autism. This led to a private practice which fitted around my growing family. Or so I thought, then their needs and those of the practice became incompatible. I had to choose one, so I took a break, intending to return to therapy when the family were older.
During that time, I rediscovered art, its healing properties and that making art was my identity.
In a “now or never” moment, my artist journey began with a Blog - posting a picture everyday. I explored a variety of media and subjects, as my style emerged.
Abstract architecture – defined by me as order and chaos. I draw with masking fluid, then create textural layers in watercolour and acrylic ink. In 2018, using my therapy skills, I started enhancing these paintings with stories and later pairing them with tactile objects. In 2026 I began creating a full 5 sensory experience.
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