Christine Cathie
“De-moulding the work when it is out of the kiln - sometimes the piece has been slowly cooling in the kiln for weeks, so it is a long wait, not knowing whether it has worked in the way I intended. But every time, in all this time I have been working in cast glass, I still get a thrill on seeing a piece that has worked.”
Cast Glass
We love...
The moment you see the look on people's faces when the light hits the glass, transforming the piece into an object that is alive, almost sings. The sheer fascination by viewers, their joy in seeing the way the colours intensify and become tactile, that is the moment they meet Christine Cathie's world. ARTFORM.
Currently in the gallery…
Feature
"Working in cast glass with abstract sculptural forms I draw lines through space - exploring the translucent nature of glass by using twists, turns and sweeps of curve and shifts of density to lend a smooth and tactile nature to the contours of the forms.
I aim to achieve a sense of lightness, rhythm and frozen action by creating a feeling of tension within the work.
I am interested in the paradoxes of these forms – how the glass can look fragile yet is strong, is balanced yet looks precarious, and weightless - yet with form and substance."
Born in Wellington in 1955, Christine Cathie has been casting glass since 2000. Employing tapered edges and curvaceous silhouettes, her sculptural forms draw lines through space, exploiting the translucent nature of glass to establish a dialogue between light, density and mass, and the shadow of shape and texture, and lending a smooth and tactile moment of movement to achieve balance and harmony.
A four times finalist in the Australian Ranamok Glass Prize, Cathie was selected for the New Zealand show ‘Southern Exposure’ at the prestigious Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark in 2004. She was commissioned to design the awards for the Arts Foundation of New Zealand’s ‘New Generation Awards’ in 2006. Her work is held in private, public and corporate collections both nationally and internationally.