Merrill Watson in Conversation with Artist, Catherine Kurtz
A few weeks ago, I made the journey into London from the countryside to see the preliminary set up for artist Catherine Kurtz’s show, Pinned. It was meant to open on the 3rd of November at The Redfern Gallery in London. Disappointingly, like most things, it was cancelled when the second lockdown was enacted. Rather than create a virtual show for Pinned, The Redfern has decided to stage the opening in 2021.
Considering Kurtz’s work, this is the right decision to make. Her work is the first I had seen in the flesh since the first lockdown began. I couldn't wait to see the elusive brushstroke so rarely seen on any webinars, online gallery spaces, and zoom presentations I had enjoyed, and sometimes endured, over the spring and early summer. I was grateful for the escapism of the online forum in the art world, but my visit to The Redfern was particularly special because I met Kurtz herself to learn about her latest work.
Kurtz’s paintings did not disappoint. Her delicate and masterful brushstrokes are a delight to behold after months of flat screens. The paintings themselves represent, not only in their mastery, but in their subject matter as well, an “expression of our universal vulnerability and mortal fragility.” One can sense emotion and care in every stroke she makes.
I sat down with Kurtz, eager to discuss the subject matter of the three bodies of work in her show, Torn, Pinned and Memento Mori, and how her work has evolved over the years.
Merrill Watson: Pinned is a show based on objects. Your previous shows at The Redfern, Pants, In My Shoes and Food|Sex|Fashion, also focused on objects. Can you tell me how you choose the subject matter for your paintings and what the significance of a single object is?
Catherine Kurtz: The paintings in those earlier shows are still lifes in one respect, but they are really about me thinking about issues around being a woman and the pressures I felt growing up female. It’s partly to do with my particular self, being very tall, being mixed race, and there being certain things that I couldn't manage but that I felt were expected. Some of this was specific to me, but I feel like it is also a universal female experience. I had a really strong need to examine some of the accoutrements of female success: sexiness, beauty, et cetera. For a variety of reasons, I took on the issue of desirability, what that comprises and how I felt I couldn't succeed at it.
The Shoes exhibition was done in the era of Sex in the City. Carrie Bradshaw was trotting around Manhattan in her Manolos. I couldn't [afford] those, much less wear them. I would tower over most men in six-inch heels; not a look I was comfortable with.
The culture I was immersed in was pressurised in particular ways for a female; some of which I am glad to see questioned and lifted now. Although, I am fully aware that other pressures remain or have increased. Food|Sex|Fashion stemmed from that. It was sexy underwear. It was shoes. It was all the roles women have to master, and not just those to do with appearance and desirability. Success in the domestic sphere is also expected, and very much so in terms of career. I felt this going to an academically [rigorous] school and growing up in a high-achieving family, and it wasn't just to do with gender. It was also to do with my individual, personal make up; what roles I might inhabit and what I [felt] I simply couldn’t. Gender coloured things a lot for me.
Then when I had children, I was horrified by the gendering of everything. The toys, the attitudes, the way you are meant to treat the baby, the interactions, how you speak to them, the immediate expectations put on the child by others. I was horrified by Ann Summers (a rather risqué lingerie shop which also offers sex toys) for example, in the middle of [our] main shopping street. Not because I’m a prude, but because of how gendered it was, because of the messages it was giving my daughter and the expectations it would place on her, as well as the very different messages it was giving my son, and what expectations he might have of women.