Catharine Armitage (1944 - 2020)

Armitage’s earliest work took the form of landscapes completed on the spot or in the studio, as well as still lifes and figures. Her work is based on observation, as she herself stated: “my paintings are reactions to the things I see; they are not about ideas.” Her experience at the Slade School of Art, where she was taught by Anthony Gross and Barto dos Santos, was a huge inspiration to her. During her time at the Slade, she departed from the figurative and landscapes for bold, abstract, organic forms.

The landscapes and light of Cornwall would become an invaluable source of inspiration for Armitage’s movement into more simplified forms. Her approach has been described as modernist due to the application of her oils on canvases, which stay as flat and as close to the surface as possible.

Armitage’s most recent inspiration has been nano-photography. Her use of the visual is unchanged and her style still similar, however, in her most recent work the forms are simplified, unspecified and organic.