Catherine Mansell
My work has a minimalist style that reflects both the natural environment and a love of abstraction. Asian brush painting, Encaustic, and Fresco combine .
Message
Catherine Radix Mansell is an elected artist member of the Allied Artists of America, the Rhode Island Watercolor Society, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art, the Mystic Museum of Art, and the Sumi-e Society of America. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Rhode Island Watercolor Society and has served as a teaching docent at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, Rhode Island. She was appointed Proctor at the Brown University Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender during her graduate studies at the Center for Environmental Studies there. Her responsibilities in that position included shared management the Sarah Doyle Center's Gallery.
Catherine has enjoyed numerous national and local awards. Hundreds of her paintings have been chosen for exhibition at galleries from Maine to Florida, including Chicago, New York City and New England galleries.
Statement
My work reflects both the natural environment and my intuitive drive toward abstraction., It is a fusion from study of very old Fresco wall painting, Asian-influenced Sumi-e strokes, and encaustic painting techniques. I often incorporate handmade, delicate Korean or Japanese papers with a base of historical dry historical colors and Chinese inks which provide an unusual but very archival outcome. I typically use basic tools of masonry, propane torches and heat guns, Chinese made brushes, and German pigments.
Living in Maine during many summers and studying Asian brush painting there with Master Sumi-e artist Frederica Marshall has proven to be the strongest influence on my work. John Marin, whose work I also greatly admire, once lived on the same Maine island, Deer Isle.