***Mar 2006 Focus pg 1-32 - Focus Magazine

paletteA sense of reverenceAAREN MADDENWith light and shadow,Catherine Moffat creates sanctuaries in paint.Picture a girl of 17 standing in front of a gallery window staring ata painting. Intently—with intent, in the truest sense of the word.She is absorbing what she can before she returns from herlunch break, back to pressing down, ca-chunk, on the keys of an oldUnderwood in an office of the Legislature building.That was Catherine Moffat, creating her life as an artist. “I had tostand in front of [the painting] until I learned something that you couldput into a sentence,” she recalls. “Ireally tried to study, and fantasizedthat I was studying under a master;I would give myself exercises todo. It was just so corny,” she laughsdismissively.She may say, but one can’t dismissthe determination and self disciplinethat brought her to where she is now:Since first exhibiting in 1978, shehas had 24 one-woman shows andcountless group shows and enjoyedgreat commercial success. Locally,she shows at Avenue Gallery in OakBay and Peninsula Gallery in Sidney.She has taught at the MetchosinInternational Summer School of theArts and juried exhibitions for theFederation of Canadian Artists andthe Sidney Fine Art Show. This withCatherine Moffatno formal training (“there was neverany money”), only the insight that“you don’t know what you don’t know,” coupled with the desire tofigure out what that was.“That was my gift,” she says—not the ability, but the unrelentingdrive to learn and create her art practice. “I didn’t have it for anythingelse. I’m not a well-rounded person; I’m a single-purpose person.I’ve always been that way.” To the frustration of her friends, she wouldleave a night out early in order to go home and paint. She took herwork to galleries, only, at first, to have it rejected. “You go home andcry, then you get up and start again,” she shrugs.What compelled her to persevere in the early days motivates herstill. Her intent is not to create “art” per se, but to create beauty. Morespecifically, beauty as sanctuary. Chiaroscuro—the controlled placementof highlight and shadow—is the main device of technical precisionthat Moffat applies to this end. Referring to a painting of a dancerentitled “Satin Ribbons,” (see cover) Moffat describes the challengeas simply knowing when “the colour has to stop being one thingand start being another.” Achieving that perfect transition requiresPHOTO: TONY BOUNSALLOpposite page, top: “Lettie” 11 x 14 inches, oil on canvasBottom left: “Cinnabar Vase” 13.5 x 10.5 inches, watercolour on paperBottom right: “Floating in a Sea of Stripes” 18 x 22 inches, watercolourwww.focusonline.ca • June 201329