Exploring the Surface: The Beauty of Paper
Catherine Nash, who holds a deep reverence for paper, will guide us in transforming our understanding of this humble yet extraordinary substrate. Rooted in her experiences in Japan, she will share the compelling history of paper and its organic connection to the natural world.
The surfaces of papers made with different fibers—beaten, formed, and dried in unique ways—offer a remarkable diversity of textures and interactions with drawing media. Catherine will present actual Japanese prints alongside her in-progress and finished artworks, illustrating her adapted painting techniques inspired by traditional and contemporary Japanese woodblock printing. Through layering textures, mark-making, surface treatments, and embellishments, she reveals how artists can expand and enrich their drawing surfaces.
Featured Works
Catherine Nash, Twilight Through the Window
Mixed media painting on handmade kozo paper
54.5 in. h. x 27.25 in. w.
Catherine Nash, Mountain on Fire with Meteors
2023 AZ Biennial at TMA
(Photo credit: Robert Renfrow)
About the Artist
A longtime resident of Tucson, Arizona, Catherine Nash is an artist who freely mixes media to express her ideas. Her work has been included by invitation in numerous national and international exhibitions. Specializing in Japanese and Western hand papermaking, encaustic painting, and mixed media drawing, she has taught extensively across the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
Nash is currently a faculty member at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum Art Institute. In 2015, she was honored with the Lumies Artist Award, recognizing excellence, originality, and ingenuity in the southern Arizona arts and culture sector. She has also been awarded two three-week residencies at The Lake, the studio of the late painter Morris Graves near Eureka, California.
Her work is deeply shaped by her heritage and travels: connections with relatives in Ireland, explorations of Japanese aesthetics and culture, the luminous expanses of Scandinavian summer skies, and the rugged wilderness of the Southwest. With lifelong dedication to her studio practice, Nash creates mixed media images and sculptures that respond to nature and reflect a spiritual and philosophical relationship with the environment—the poetics of landscape.
Art: catherinenash.com
IG: instagram.com/cnash_artist/
Articles & blog: papermakingresources.com