Today we’d like to introduce you to Cat Huss.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I’ve always enjoyed making art and working with visual arts. By that, I mean how things are visually presented whether that’s at home, at work, or in other areas. Before a few years ago, I saw this only as a compulsion and continued developing myself through higher education in communication studies.
During that time, I was working on being more self-aware, and the compulsion became more focused on wanting to mix paint, make marks, and express myself through color, shape, line, and composition. Because I’m thinking all the time about very serious things, I am more attracted to abstract painting because it allows me to play…to work on not thinking but just expressing. It is very much the opposite of what I do/did for work. In Communication Studies, everything has a purpose and is precisely designed to meet an end goal. I detest small-talk. My goal with art is simply to express all of those very serious conversations I otherwise don’t have with casual acquaintances. My need to tell the story visually has spanned a lifetime. In graduate school when others were concerned only with the words which told the story of a project, I was very concerned with the impact the visual part of the presentation could have on its effectiveness in presenting it to others.
I am still working on becoming a full-time artist, but for the time being, I have a business which allows me to work from home so I can paint whenever I want. Working and developing an art career at the same time can be extremely challenging but it has been very fulfilling, and I continue to evolve in self and work.
Please tell us about your art.
Most of my influence/inspiration is completely internal. The expression on the canvas is the result of meditating over different ideas about myself and the world around me. It is deeply personal.
Throughout my life, water has been a source of comfort, joy, relaxation, and refuge for me. I have lived on the East and West Coasts of Mexico, grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, lived by the flowing rivers and calm lakes of Southwest Missouri and spent some summers as a kid in South Jersey near the shore. Water is the most indispensable element in my work by far. I pour it and mix it with paint, move it around the canvas, watch it drip, sit still and see where it goes naturally….all this is a sort of meditation for me. When the pouring is done, I mark over it with pencils, soft pastels, and more paint until I like what I see.
My hope is that people take away what they want from my work. I realize that’s a cryptic answer, but it’s true. It is a deeply personal expression of self, my way of communicating with the world but I don’t expect someone to get all of my deeply personal meditations from a painting. If it’s an intense series, I hope people can feel it’s intensity, if that’s what they want. If they see something else, that’s fine as long as whatever it is, makes you feel something, be engaged, wonder or question. Questioning everything is important, so I hope my paintings inspire questions both of me and of others. That’s the real beauty of the Abstract….it doesn’t try to be anything; it just is.
We often hear from artists that being an artist can be lonely. Any advice for those looking to connect with other artists?
Participating in major group shows like The Other Art Fair has really helped me because I made connections with more like-minded people. If you are interested in really pursuing it as a career and not just a hobby, you need to go where the serious artists are. You can also find them online, but it may take a while to find a good group you like chatting with. Go to art shows and talk to artists. I can’t tell you how many people I met at TOAF Brooklyn who were at the show, not showing, but just browsing art and wanting to talk to artists. Many of those were artists themselves wanting to talk shop with the people showing there. There is much to give and to gain in sharing your techniques, stories of inspiration, and business advice/ideas. Finding a few good connections truly is invaluable.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My work can be found on Saatchi Art online gallery, at my website (www.cathussart.com), and at Felder Gallery in San Antonio, TX. I also do The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn NY twice a year as long as they’ll have me and am hoping to partner with those same people for future shows in Los Angeles and Dallas in the Fall if I’m selected.
My latest project (almost a year in the making) is with Bed Bath and Beyond’s Exclusive Artist launch last month. Prints of some of my work created specifically for them are available there.
Feel free to follow along @_cathussart on Instagram or Cat Huss Art on Facebook.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cathussart.com
- Phone: 3618770511
- Email: cat@cathussart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_cathussart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cathussart/?eid=ARClBMnDVAK6XYP6hSmKY6tNwWDipGPSYqozxF7K7a8kxHkbd3iUl9liEj1XNmZjo1v_UmXHUYQnWfmN
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatHuss
- Other: https://www.saatchiart.com/cathussart
Image Credit:
Cat Huss
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