Now we have one of the artists whose art immediately jumped off the screen at me when Photoshop Artistry was first launched: the wildly talented digital artist and world-traveler Catherine King. Catherine was our featured artist in Issue No. 4 of Living the Photo Artistic Life (and indeed, one of her compositions currently holds the masthead position on the magazine site itself). Let’s jump in …
Q: What inspires you as an artist, and what would you say “Living the Photo Artistic Life” means to you?
Catherine King: What inspires me most would be stories, histories, fantasies from my childhood, over-the-top cinema. I am especially inspired by art history (Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, and the Dutch masters) and by literature (Proust, Conan Doyle, and Vladimir Nabokov). I’m certainly inspired by my travels around the world. I’m even inspired by music with especially clever lyrics (Paul Simon, Lyle Lovett).
When it comes to ‘Living the Photo Artistic Life,’ I think that it all comes together when, as an artist, you finally stop even thinking about it — because it is 100% embedded in your being. It’s just who you are and what you do. And when you reach that point, you know that whenever ‘life’ diverts you or occupies your time, it’s OK. You will come back to the creative process. It will always be there inside you, waiting. And in the end, it will comfort you, provide you with your unique voice, and keep you sane.
Q: What would you say it is you want most to convey with your art?
Catherine King: I’d say that my goal, first and foremost, is to engage my audience’s imagination … get my viewers to linger a little longer so they might pick out a detail or a story in one of my pieces. That’s so important, because I create art to tell a story. It’s probably telling that I have never produced a piece called “untitled” — because to me, the title of a composition should be the artist’s first clue to the message in a piece.
Every day I feel that I venture into an imaginative and aware world, where the smallest thing may trigger what I suppose I’ve come to accept as my overactive imagination. “Personal projects” are particularly powerful to me, and especially revealing. My images often evolve in a series, which naturally stretches and embellishes the centralizing concept I am exploring. These pieces all start from behind the lens of a camera (DSLR or mobile), and I then bring in additional elements I’ve collected, compositing it all digitally using Photoshop and a wide variety of image manipulating software — but always, from the first shutter click, in pursuit of the story I wish to tell.
And that story isn’t finished for me until I am holding the print in my hands. The decision concerning how the work is to be printed draws upon a deep and sincere love of paper — a love inspired by years spent in the printing industry — where each piece is ultimately enhanced by the unique properties I feel my choice of paper imparts to the finished piece.
Q: I’d love to hear a bit more about a couple of your pieces in particular. The first would have to be the one you so generously allowed me to employ at the top of our magazine site …
Catherine King: That piece is entitled ‘Embrace the Light’ and has become a representation of the seeking, the learning, and the growth that an individual can celebrate when they are living the artistic life. It took me several years to reach the point that I genuinely identified myself first and foremost as an artist. It was only after doing a lot of work, and then a whole lot more. But after that, it has become the one constant I know in my life. It’s why I know I will forever be creating art.
”Life for me revolves around the joyous, playful, intense, intentional, and relentless creative process.”
Q: And what of your piece titled ‘Catharsis’? I love the Amelia Earhart quotation you include with that one: “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace; the soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.”
Catherine King: Believe it or not, that’s actually a self-portrait. And, indeed, this quote of Amelia’s has been with me on my wall for decades. The message in that piece is a constant reminder to me to carry myself always as the strong and tenacious woman I wish to be.
Q: What are the most important things you feel you have learned in your journey as an artist?
Catherine King: This probably sounds really corny, but I’d say the most important thing I’ve learned is to be true to who you are. I create the pictures I have inside me. They are true to who I am, true to my life’s journey. I’ve learned to be happy in just the act of creation and imagination. That’s so important. As an artist, you must allow a piece or a personal project to completely obsess you until you complete it the way you envisioned. Nothing else can be as fulfilling as that. You will drive your friends and loved ones nuts, sure, but in the end they will embrace and celebrate you for it.