ARTIST STATEMENT
The natural world holds an intrinsic energy, an ancient equilibrium that sustains life. Across humanity’s shared memory, this power has been honored, yet in today’s personal, political, and ecological climate, balance often feels increasingly fragile. Through my work, I seek to stay connected to nature, to others, and to myself, offering a place for reflection and renewal.
My practice is rooted in the elemental archetypes of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Observing these forces from macro to micro allows me to explore their interactions, rhythms, and patterns. Working across painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and book arts, I work intuitively with materials, allowing their histories and physical qualities to shape each piece. Beeswax, oil stick, graphite, stone, glass, textiles, metals, found objects, and paper are layered, erased, fused, stitched, and reassembled, carrying both process and memory.
Working in series is central to how I think and make. Ideas develop slowly, moving from one body of work to another, allowing experimentation and discovery to guide the process. Photography often serves as a starting point. Images of trees, water, sky, landscapes, and fragments of text are reworked through monotype, archival printing, and encaustic processes. Fire fuses layers of wax, preserving the record of change within the surface.
My work acknowledges both the beauty found in decay and the uncertainty of the present moment. I am drawn to the quiet persistence of hope that remains, even as the world changes around us. At its core, my practice is an act of attention, shaped by time, observation, and the returning light.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Catherine Eaton Skinner is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans encaustic, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and poetry. Her work reflects a sustained engagement with the natural world, drawing on elemental archetypes of earth, water, fire, air, and ether to explore balance, change, and continuity.
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Skinner earned a BA in Biology from Stanford University while studying painting with Bay Area figurative artists Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. She worked for twenty years as a biological illustrator specializing in marine ecosystems along the Pacific Coast. This early training continues to inform her careful attention to structure, pattern, and material process. Skinner works between studios in Seattle, Washington, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Her forthcoming monograph 5 (Fall 2026) gathers approximately 130 works from the past decade into five volumes housed in a single slipcase, one for each of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Skinner is also the author of the monograph 108, published by Radius Books, documenting twelve years of studio practice centered on the symbolic resonance of that number, and Unleashed, published with Woodland Park Zoo and University of Washington Press. Skinner has presented over fifty solo exhibitions and participated in more than one hundred group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her work is held in numerous public collections, including the Henry Art Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, the Museum of Northwest Art, and Seattle University.
© Catherine Eaton Skinner