An artist not set in her ways
An artist not set in her ways
Tony Henderson talks to Katherine Renton whose new exhibition showcases her latest material find from the Northumberland coast.
Artist Katherine Renton is building a reputation for working with materials gathered from the Northumbrian seashore to create her own watercolour paints.
She uses the soft rock yellow ochre, sea coal, shale, sand and sea-washed pieces of bricks which she grinds down to powder form, combined with her own binding agent.
Now she has had added concrete fragments found on the beaches to her mix.
Her concrete paintings will feature in her latest exhibition, Folly, which has a public opening on Saturday (Sept 21) from 6pm-8pm at the rePUBlic gallery in the former King’s Head pub in Bridge Street, Blyth.
It will run until October 19 (Tues to Sat, 9am-3pm).
Katherine, who grew up in Amble and now lives near Shilbottle, wears a mask while painting with concrete as a precaution against the material’s ingredients.
“Painting with concrete is very hard going,” says Katherine, who studied fine art at Newcastle University.
She was struck by the fact that concrete is everywhere on the coast, from wartime tank trap blocks and pill boxes to harbour and sea walls.
The issues of climate change and rising sea level erosion influence Katherine’s work.
Her paintings explore, on a local level, the issues of climate change by linking coastal erosion to local industries such as coal-mining, and the geology, geography and history of the North East coast.
“Concrete has become my most recent obsession – a material that has apparently become the most common material on Earth after water, and the processes used in creating it are incredibly damaging to our environment.
“It’s horrible stuff to work with, smashing it up into small pieces to create my pigment is hard physical labour, and I have to wear a face mask and goggles.”
Sandcastles, which caught Katherine’s attention while walking on Alnmouth beach, feature in the exhibition.
She says: “A folly is a building with no practical purpose and a sandcastle is the ultimate folly, created knowing that the rising tide will destroy it.
“I paint sandcastles with watercolours that I make from debris that I find along our disappearing coastline such as sea coal, shale and concrete.
“But the sandcastles created by visitors come in many different forms and are very creative.”
Katherine is working part time as an art teacher at Collingwood special needs school and media arts college in Stobhill, near Morpeth. Her students will stage their own exhibition at RePUBlic in January.