ARTIST STATEMENT
My work grows out of my attempts to understand how I make sense of the world around me. I use abstract linear flora as a personal visual language—lines that resemble plant forms but resist becoming fixed. As these lines overlap, intersect, and layer, they create spaces that feel unstable and shifting, mirroring the way perception is never singular or complete.
The overlapping flora alters how space is read, flattening and expanding it simultaneously. What appears solid becomes porous; what seems foreground slips into background. These moments reflect my experience of reality as something continuously revised by memory, emotion, and perspective. Rather than depicting nature, I use its rhythms to explore how meaning forms through accumulation, repetition, and interference.
Through this process, the work becomes a record of looking, thinking, and re-looking—an invitation for viewers to notice how their own perceptions shift as forms collide and reconfigure. The lines do not offer answers; they create conditions where meaning can emerge.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cat Crotchett has created and taught art for over 36 years, building a career at the intersection of innovation and experimentation. Her abstract paintings explore pattern, texture, and inventive techniques drawn from a global range of influences. She holds BFAs in Painting and Art History from the University of Illinois, and an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
A frequent presenter at the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, Cat has led workshops across the U.S., Canada, and Indonesia. Her solo exhibitions include venues across the U.S. and in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia. She has participated in international group shows, received grants, and completed residencies, including the 2022 experimental residency at the Golden Foundation for the Arts.
Her work is held in public and private collections. Cat has been honored with the 2021 Distinguished Faculty Scholar award and the 2015 Roehrick Distinguished Professorship at Western Michigan University, where she teaches.
Courtesy of Addington Gallery.
© Cat Crotchett