About
Cathy Phelan-Watkins was born in Portsmouth in 1963. Captivated by the Impressionists on her first visit to the National Gallery as a five-year-old, she has been making art ever since. Formally educated at Portsmouth and Goldsmiths College of Art at the birth of the YBA movement, she has also studied contemporary theory at Falmouth School of Art.
An early interest in the feminist movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s led her to explore issues around the deconstruction of female identity in a variety of media - notably her one-woman exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery in 1988, where she presented studies of shop window interiors featuring women’s clothing and household goods. Further experimentations during this period led to her combining photographs printed on canvas with oil painting. Her series of contemporary interiors embellished with childhood figures from art history powerfully illustrate the sense of a ‘living history’ and the burden of memory.
Relocating to St Ives in Cornwall in the early 2000s, Phelan-Watkins was initially enthralled by the rich artistic legacy of the area. After a brief period of focusing on the landscape, a display of Barbie dolls in the local Woolworths store triggered a return to feminist themes: suitably horrified, she embarked on a series of detailed anatomical studies of Barbie and Ken, subsequently exhibiting throughout the area, notably Tate St Ives. In tandem with these works, she completed a series of monumental crochet sculptures, also featuring Barbie dolls.
After the death of her husband in 2015, Phelan-Watkins embarked on an exploration of her personal experience of bereavement. Commencing with a life-size sculpture of a horse made from domestic ephemera and hospital notes. The process was captured by documentary film maker Peter Bach in his film ‘After Daniel’. Her memoir of this period, ‘On A White Horse’, detailed her life with Daniel and his death from cancer. Other pieces made at this time include; ‘Crinoline’ and the ‘Halfway To Heaven Tree’ both made from paper. These works with accompanying text form a portfolio of images entitled ‘Before The Leaves Fall’, created by photographer Erroll Jones.
Returning to her roots, her latest project ‘2020 Visions’ consists of 365 watercolour paintings created on a daily basis throughout 2020. Fulfilling a desire to reflect something of her domestic existence, the paintings range in subject from her favourite shoes, vegetables and local landscapes to portraits of political figures. With no foresight of what this momentous year would hold, this work nevertheless provides something of a magical fusion of all that has gone before. Not least the combining of deeply personal experience through a political reality.
Cathy Phelan-Watkins lives and works in Clapham, South London.