Cat Huss exhibited at this year’s Art Santa Fe 2022. Get to know this contemporary artist below!
Q: Who are you and what do you do?
A: My name is Cat Huss and I am an abstract painter and visual artist.
Q: What is your background?
A: I grew on the Texas Gulf Coast and moved away when I was 18. I lived, travelled, and raised a family in Mexico for 13 years before coming back to the States. As a mother of teenagers, I worked and studied Communication in the Midwest. I started my art career in 2017 and have been building it ever since.
Q: How do you work?
A: For me, creating art is a meditative process that starts with a lot of thinking and studying visual things that interest me. I usually find these things out in nature, in tidal pools, sea grass, ripples of water, etc. Out there alone is where I think more clearly. Once I’ve filled my head with images, I try to think more deeply about my fascination with them. I usually have a plan of some kind. I make rough sketches, take notes, and think about color and composition. Once I am in the studio and start painting, though, I try to let the process take over and just pour my thoughts out onto the canvas.
All the work starts with pouring. There are many layers of that before any discernible shape overlays are applied. Adding rough geometric shapes is sort of my way of making order of it all.
Q: What art and artist do you most identify with? How have they influenced you?
A: I’ve never thought of myself as someone who is particularly influenced by others. I don’t. have an art degree and didn’t study art history so I have fewer reference points than many in my position. I would say my approach is very similar to Georgia O’Keefe’s. I’ve read about her and it seems we have a similar way of looking at the world…I deeply identify with her approach to the work, her worldview, and her love of nature and discovery.
Visually speaking, I think I’m most influenced by Mark Rothko. I appreciate the rich fields of color which convey intimate detail upon close inspection. It is visually minimal, but the work invites you in and you feel you are having an experience with the work unlike any other. I hope my work can achieve that for the viewer.
Q: What has been your favorite experience so far as an artist?
A: I think just the privilege of being able to make the work and have it experienced by others. Art is something that impacts lives in a very subtle way but it is meaningful. It is pure expression. It sparks conversations, and makes people feel something and that’s valuable to me.
Q: What is the best advice you have received?
A: I. haven’t really had the advantage of mentors in the art world. What I can say is that I’ve tried to surround myself with honest, straightforward people who support my work and process. These are ‘can do’ people. I don’t know whether I heard it from someone or it’s just part of who I am but I’ve always held true to the belief that if I produce something honest and true to myself and put it out into the public eye on a regular basis — the rest will just happen on it’s own. I’m not trying to make it sound easy, this approach requires consistency and fearlessness in putting yourself out there. I try to keep intelligent people around me who support that even when it sounds a bit crazy.
Q: When you are not working, where can we find you?
A: I am always working. What I mean by that is that my experiences all end up in the work and I am constantly observing and being inspired by things. Every moment is an opportunity to notice something…discover something new never seen before. When I am not painting, I might be out in nature, at the beach, spending time with my significant other or visiting with grown children but it all ends up in the work.
Q: How has your career as an artist shifted during the past two years? And did the pandemic have an influence on your art?
A: My art practice has really expanded in the past couple of years. In 2019, my plan was to stay in the studio in 2020 and not do any shows, fairs etc. I was feeling lost in the commotion of creating for those events and felt like I needed to create just to create. I needed to get more grounded in my processes and understand more of what inspires me. I needed to reboot creatively. Then the pandemic happened and that gave me even more solitude and room to create without feeling pressured by the outside world. I posted more frequently about process on social media and expanded my studio into a larger space. My sales to private collectors increased and I started working more with art consultancies and designers on different projects.
Visit and follow Cat on Instagram to see more of her work.
