WHERE ART BEGINS
Catherine Clancy is an English sculptor and painter whose work explores the creation of beauty from the immaterial. Art has been part of her life from an early age, long before she became a full-time artist. Alongside a 30-year career as a psychologist and psychotherapist, she continued to study art, philosophy and sculpture, eventually completing a PhD in Philosophy and Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art (UOAL). She studied at Central Saint Martins in London and in Paris as a pupil of Jean Touret, sculptor of the altarpiece at Notre Dame, prior to the fire in 2019. Emerging as a full-time artist later in life, Catherine describes this not as a beginning, but as the moment when she could finally give her artistic practice the space it had always held in her life.
“Art is held in the body. It is a conversation at depth, and every artwork is a ‘call’ to that depth.”
WHERE LIGHT BECOMES FORM
For more than a decade, living in France among the vineyards has profoundly shaped Catherine’s way of seeing. The landscape and the changing character of the terroir have become part of her visual language - not as something to reproduce, but as something to feel. She is drawn to the fleeting: the presence of light within darkness, an atmosphere that appears for a moment, an impression that exists somewhere between what is seen and what is imagined. Poetry, her first love, remains another constant source of inspiration, particularly during her time in England, often finding its way into the thoughts and titles behind her paintings. Through oil, ink and bronze, Catherine follows these impressions, exploring how something invisible - a feeling, a memory, a thought, a possibility- can slowly become form.
WHERE NO BECOMES YES
For Catherine, every work begins in uncertainty. A painting is not a destination she already knows, but a conversation between herself and the work - a process of playing, listening, making mistakes, beginning again, and allowing something unexpected to emerge. Sculpture offers another kind of dialogue, where an idea gradually reveals itself through the material. At the heart of both is courage: the courage to continue when the answer is unclear, to accept what does not work, and to resist the voices that say no. For Catherine, this is to work, as the poets do, with negative capability: to remain open to uncertainty, to resist the need for immediate answers, and to allow something unknown to emerge. Her practice is also deeply influenced by thoughts held within philosophy. To create is to refuse the idea that something cannot exist. It is to bring into existence what was not there before - to make the unknown known.
Catherine Clancy in her Bordeaux Studio, 2026
Jean Touret and Catherine Clancy, 1990