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artist statement - Catherine Dunn

I don’t know why I paint. Neither does anyone else. But best of all, no one really cares anyway. This gives a person a lot of leeway.

I’m legally blind without my glasses. For several years of life, everything I saw was a blur. It might have been that I was in constant motion but I still couldn’t see well enough to avoid hitting trees. A seminal moment came when I got my first pair of glasses. Suddenly the trees had leaves. I stopped running into them. Weird. Now when I am in my studio, I try to recapture childhood by taking off my glasses and running back and forth in front of the paintings, sometimes with a very big brush. My mother tells me I ought to slow down, running 70 or 80 miles a night right up there between the studio walls is bound to have effects. To really see these paintings the right way you have to get up out of your chair and run back and forth too. You may get cramps and hyperventilate but it only makes the work better.

I live and work in Southern Maryland. It’s an out of the way place, the last stop on the end of a peninsula, right before diving into the sea. Your visitors have to really want to find you. My studio has two doors. Sometimes I can’t remember which one is the locked one. This keeps me in there longer than usual. I think it’s been good for my work.  

EDUCATION

1998                      Indiana University, MFA painting
1993-94                 School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1992                      Hampshire College, BA in painting and writing

EXHIBITIONS

2008                      Allen Sheppard Gallery, Group Exhibition, NY, NY
2008                      Nahcotta Gallery, Enormous Tiny, Portsmouth, NH
2007                      Nahcotta Gallery, Landscapes, Portsmouth, NH
2006                      Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery,
                              National Portrait Competition Semi-finalist, Washington, DC
2006                      Maryland Institute College of Art, Under Brittany Skies, Baltimore, MD     
2005                      Rochefort- en-Terre, Group Show, Rochefort en Terre. France
2004                      Nahcotta Gallery, Landscape Group Show, Portsmouth, NH
2004                      WPAC/ Corcoran, Anonymous, Washington, DC
2003                      13th Annual National Art Competition, Kirksville, MO
2003                      Nahcotta Gallery, New Paintings, Portsmouth, NH
2002                      Anderson Soule Gallery, Group Show, Concord, NH
2002                      Nahcotta Gallery, Group Show, Portsmouth , NH
2002                      Concord Art Association, George Nick Selects Lexington, MA
2001                      Allen Sheppard Gallery, Catherine Dunn, New Paintings New York, NY
2001                      Nahcotta Gallery, Catherine Dunn, New Work Portsmouth, NH
2000                      Allen Sheppard Gallery, Catherine Dunn, Paintings Piermont, NY
2000                      Nahcotta Gallery, Catherine Dunn, New Work Portsmouth, NH

RESIDENCIES

2005                      Artist in Residence, Rochefort -en -Terre, France, sponsored  by  
                              The Maryland Institute College of Art and the French Government                 
2002                      Panelist, George Nick Selects, Concord Art Association, Lexington, MA
2001                      Visiting Artist Lecturer, Duke University, Leadership in the Arts,
                              New York, NY
1995                      Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

EMPLOYMENT

2006-2008           Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD
                            Interim Director of Exhibitions and Collections
2005- 2006          Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD
                            Assitant Director of Collections and Exhibitions
2005- 2006          Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD
                            Registrar
2001-2002           Art Academy of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
                            Adjunct Faculty: Beginning level and advanced studio classes: Drawing I,                             Drawing II, Conceptual Drawing, Narrative Drawing, Advanced Studio.
2000-2001           Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA 
                            Adjunct Instructor: Painting I, Introduction to Technology
                            and Life Drawing II.
1999 – 2000        Gluckman Mayner Architects, New York, NY
                            Archivist, Publicist, Book Project: This office designs museums, galleries                             and exhibitions for the Whitney Museum, Warhol Museum,
                            Picasso Museum, O’Keefe Museum, Paula Cooper Gallery,
                            Gagosian Chelsea, Mary Boone and others.
1997-98               Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
                            Associate Instructor: Drawing I and Drawing II.
1994-1996           The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
                            Slide Librarian Assistant
1989                    Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH
                            Curatorial Intern:  internship during the Mapplethorpe controversy.