Catie Radney is a progressive abstract painter from Alabama. Radney holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Alabama and apprenticed under Professor Hugh Williams (National Endowment recipient and Alabama Artist of the Year recipient) for over 10 years. She creates, coordinates her business, and educates out of her personal studio in Alexander City, Alabama; where she also makes her home.
Radney’s process replicates the constant struggle for balance in all of life. Her content expression mirrors how she navigates her personal life. Radney’s work is very personal yet also universal in it’s concept and incarnation. Creativity is necessary to keeping her present, stable and alive. She has a voracious appetite for image making which is rarely satiated. When painting she uses the canvas as an opportunity to confess her personal thoughts and experiences or diatribe about what she cannot reconcile from the world outside of the studio. As the marks evolve into shape/form she begins responding with color and shape, layers and layers of color and shape. Approaching a solution involves allowing the figurative forms in the composition to be birthed into existence. The implied figures give structure to the raw nature of the layers and layers of underpainting. The figures play the role of masking or distracting from what is too literal or too honest for for the artist yet to reveal. This donning of recognizable form in paint mirrors the every human’s experience of wearing an acceptable persona to navigate their daily life.
Radney has several galleries over the Southeast: Gallery 1930 (Birmingham, Alabama), dk gallery (Marietta, Georgia), The View Gallery (Jackson, Mississippi), Gallery 905 (Selma, Alabama), Willow + Mercer (Rosemary Beach, Florida), Contemporain Gallery (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), Bud Floral and Home (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Kathleen Interiors (Decatur, Alabama), Marketplace (Nashville, Tennessee and Tampa, Florida), Raining Dogs Studio and Gallery (Dadeville, Alabama), Sophiella Gallery (Mobile, Alabama), Stellers Gallery (Jacksonville, Florida), Half Moon Market & Interiors (Alexander City, Alabama), and Shain Gallery (Charlotte, North Carolina).
Statement
When I look at a painting I dive into it and swim. The deeper I go I revel in the aliveness of the freedom. I can feel there. No boundaries in this creative space. Every stroke carries me farther into the hunt for the sunken hidden treasures into the deep waters of myself. Before I am ready I must come up to breathe to survive. My breath becomes my discipline and my stroke. Deep, controlled, meditative. Now a pallet that has reconciled the uninhibitedness of the waters underneath with the calm peaceful waters on the surface.