Catherine Ferguson is a London-based painter, writer and curator. Her research is concerned with artistic and philosophical journeys elicited by encounters with the materials and processes of practice.
Catherine completed her MA in The History and Theory of Modern Art at Chelsea College of Art, London, in 1997, and a Fine Art PhD titled, ‘Deleuze, Painting and the Art of “Surface Effects”’ in 2007 at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has taught on BA, MA and PhD Fine Art programmes in a number of UK art institutions including: Chelsea College of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, Leeds University and Brighton University.
Catherine’s practice crosses painting, writing and curation and she has exhibited widely and internationally. Catherine is an Abbey Scholar at the British School at Rome (2025).
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Research Interests
Catherine’s research investigates the generative and abstract space between the practices of painting, writing and curation. With an interest in the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson, and the biological model of autopoiesis, she approaches the heterogeneous activities of her own practice as processes that are intertwined, reciprocally evolving through the invention of non-representational modes of thought.
Awards
Abbey Award, British School at Rome (2025)
Current and recent projects
[Vernacular]
June 2024. The Minories, Colchester.
Part of the inaugural Colchester Expo with [VERNACULAR] as its theme. The work – which included painting, site-specific photomontage and wall drawing - was developed as a collaboration with an artist collective and research group called Working Spaces (Katrina Blannin (UAL), Moyra Derby (UAE), Catherine Ferguson (RCA), Della Gooden (independent), and Jo McGonigal (University of Leeds).
The collective explores the spatiality of painting, from its surface to its external spaces of activation.
Erotic Ecologies
February 2024. APT Gallery, Deptford, London.
Catherine curated an exhibition of wall-based work by four artists: Eirini Boukla, Catherine Ferguson, Rebecca Partridge and Sarah Kate Wilson. The title of the show is borrowed from Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology by bio-philosopher Andreas Weber. Weber urges us to live with a perspective from ‘the inside of life’ by paying attention to the corporeal experience of being alive rather than as analysing[KV1] machines standing apart from the world. The selection and curation of the works was guided by the idea of building relationships of material, image, surface and light - relationships that became apparent as the viewer moves through the interior space of the gallery.
Green Spaces
November 2023. Filet Space, Hoxton, London.
Solo show.. The paintings were made in the summer of 2023, a summer of record temperatures. With questions about paintings’ relevance in such a context Andreas Weber’s book Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology (2017) becomes apposite. This book draws on the biological model of autopoiesis to present a manifesto for a perspective from the “inside of life”. Inspired by Morandi’s still life paintings and Velasquez’ Las Meninas, Ferguson explored relationships of connection, transformation and enlivenment through the process of painting, from a perspective on the “inside of painting”.
[KV1]Or analytical?
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected Exhibitions
2024 [Vernacular], The Minories, Colchester
2024 Hard Paper, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
2024 Erotic Ecologies, APT Gallery, London
2023 Green Spaces, Filet Gallery, London
2022 Flat, APT Gallery, London
2020 Hard Painting, Pheonix Gallery, Brighton
2019 Fully Awake, Edinburgh School of Art, Edinburgh
2019 This Instead of That, ArtHouse 1 Gallery, Bermondsey, London
2019 Drift, Thames Side Gallery, Thamesmead, London
2018 The Secret Life of Stuff ArtHouse1 Gallery, Bermondsey, London
2018 Painting/Diagram, Diagram/Painting (solo) at Studio1 Gallery, London
2017 ‘Diagramming Caravaggio and Other Baroque Facades’, APT Gallery, Deptford, London
Projects
2024 Curator: Erotic Ecologies, (Eirini Boukla, Catherine Ferguson, Rebecca Partridge, Sarah Kate Wilson), APT Gallery, London
2022 Curator: ‘Flat’, (Nicky Coutts, Catherine Ferguson, Wendy McLean, Tim Renshaw) APT Gallery, London
2020 Curator: ‘The Undersides of Practice’, (Della Gooden, Melanie Jackson, Caroline Kraabel, Helen Robertson, David Ryan, Damian Taylor) APT Gallery, London
2018 Curator: ‘The Secret Life of Stuff’, (Eileen Agar, Bernice Donszelmann, Catherine Ferguson, John Gibbons, Della Gooden) Arthouse1 Gallery, London
2014 Curator: ‘Straddle the Line’, (Rana Begum, Katrina Blannin, Caroline Delannoy, Catherine Ferguson, Alexis Harding, Mary McLean, Jo McGonigal, Simon Morse, Covadonga Valdes, Ben Woodeson), APT Gallery, London
2014 Curator: ‘Hidden (Cache)’ Paintings by Tim Renshaw and Bookworks by John McDowall, Wild Pansy Press exhibition Space, Leeds
Publications
Ferguson, C. (2018) ‘Thumb/Rock’ (on the work of Eileen Agar) The Secret Life of Stuff catalogue, Arthouse1 Gallery publications.
Ferguson, C. (2017) ‘The Façade and the Picture Plane’ in the Journal of Contemporary Painting, Volume 3, Numbers 1 & 2, Intellect Journals, ISSN 2052-6695,
Ferguson, C (2017) Review of Bernice Donszelman at Five Years Gallery, London in Journal of Contemporary Painting, Vol. 2, No. 1
Ferguson, C. (2014) ‘Hidden (Cache)’ in Pages (Wild Pansy Press)
