Catherine Lecce-Chong

To be closer to my art, I want and need to use my tactile sense. Have you ever wanted to touch an artwork in a museum or gallery? My creations invite touch.

When I start a new work, I want to feel the loaded brush of one paint color and freely paint the entire canvas surface. No thinking, just feeling. I really enjoy the slight bounce of the canvas responding to the touch of the brush. At the finish of the painting, the original paint color is only left at the border and maybe a few details.

Art has been a sacred practice since early human history. In this global pandemic time, I needed this comfort, being isolated in my studio and in life. Even secular images can become sacred in the making. Certainly, I felt comforted as my studio started to populate with iconic beings. My images became simple, bold, iconic. My isolation became a practice in solitude, devotion and remembrance of hope for the world and me.

My 36” x 36” paintings use life size stencils, string, and acrylic paint lines to create the image. I research and read a lot when designing elements, choosing symbols or large words in the final image. I paint an entire image in many layers of paint, different mediums and collage. Braille meditations are also embedded in the paintings.

But then…. I use many layers of transparent white paint to cover the painting. Collectively they are called the “White Blindness Series” because of my eye pain in bright light. The series was born out of my necessity to accept my legal blindness after the contrast of my young adulthood when I was creating classical Western and Asian painting and calligraphy.

I use light in very special ways according to my needs to paint. For example, bright light for short time for details to dim light and flashlights and even candlelight to soothe my eyes. Let’s remember artists have worked without electricity for a long time.

Ultimately, everyone seeks safety, health and respect. I am doing the same through these paintings. I do them as an act of simplicity, contemplation and even devotion. May others find rest with these paintings.