Artist Statement

 

After years in private practice as a clinical psychologist, I’ve seen that even the smallest moments of attention, restraint, insight, or kindness can alter inner worlds and carry outward. Our unique bodies and choices create the world as we experience it. As I like to imagine it, the moon is strung by hand. This is also true of making and experiencing art.

My paintings begin with an unpredictable ground of soy and earth pigment on hemp and linen. I build from there, layer by layer, applying brushstrokes, stitches, sometimes marble dust or charcoal, until the dreamscape appears. In a culture that rewards speed, scale, and disembodiment, I work slowly with my hands and whole body. This pace allows me to stay present with what I’m doing. And afterward, when you slow down to experience the dreamscapes, your perceptions and feelings complete them. Together, we are stringing the moon by hand. 

 

Bio

 

Cat Margolin is a painter working with soy, earth pigments, paint, and stitch on hemp cloth and linen. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and spent decades in private practice. That interest in the psyche shapes her paintings of dreamscapes. She has exhibited in Chicago and San Francisco, where she divides her time. Her work is in private collections in Illinois and California.