Catherine Ferguson is a London-based painter, writer and curator. Her research is concerned with artistic and philosophical journeys elicited by encounters between different, materially specific, forms of practice.
Catherine works as Painting Tutor on the MA Painting programme, as well Research Tutor on the PhD programme.
She regularly exhibits her work, has a curatorial practice and has published articles and conference papers. She is currently working on a monograph called Painting: An Art of the Surface.
Catherine completed her PhD ‘Deleuze, Painting and the Art of “Surface Effects”’ in 2007 after completing an MA at Chelsea College of Art in 1997. Catherine has taught in many UK art institutions including, Chelsea College of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, Leeds University and Brighton University.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Research Interests
Catherine’s research investigates the generative and abstract space between the different practices of painting, writing and curation. Through an interest in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and in the biological model of autopoiesis she approaches these heterogeneous activities as processes that are intertwined and reciprocally evolving and so necessarily demand non-representational modes of thought.
Current and recent projects
Curated exhibition: Flat, APT Gallery, Deptford, London, 19 August to 21 August 2022
I exhibited paintings with invited artists, Nicky Coutts, Wendy McClean and Tim Renshaw within the curated space of the Gallery. The ambition was to demonstrate a paradoxical idea that the through appearance of an immobile, flat and bounded surface, the durations of life are encountered as intensities of sensation.
‘Of immobility alone does the intellect form a clear idea’, Bergson, Creative Evolution (Lanham, 1983, p155)
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected Exhibitions
2023 Planetary Painting, 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
2018 A Road Not Taken, Marylebone Crypt Gallery, London
2018 Paint North, Ladybeck Space, Leeds
2017 ‘Creekside 11’, Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk
2017 ‘Diagramming Caravaggio and Other Baroque Facades’, APT Gallery, Deptford, London
2015 Conference of the Birds, I’klectik, London
2015 Group Show, Berloni Gallery, London
2014 Summer Saloon Show, Lion & Lamb, Hoxton then at The Aldeburgh Beach South Lookout, Suffolk,
2014 ‘Straddle the Line’, APT Galley, London
2014 ‘Switch’, Pulchri Gallery, The Hague, Netherlands
Projects
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
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)
