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photo by Caryl Roese, 2002
. KATHRYN DODD
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"Bloom", 2005, oil on board
"Fall on Me" , 2005,
oil on canvas
"Listening in the Dark", 2006, oil on canvas(artist's collection)
Kathryn was born in 1962 in London. From 1978 to 80 she studied at the Epsom School of Art and Design, Surrey and the Roehampton Institute – Digby Stuart College in London. This was made possible through The Society of Scribes and Illuminators Associate Scheme. In 1995 she settled in Wales i.e. in Alltwalis in Carmarthenshire, where she has her studio on a converted farm.
Artist's Statement: I came to Epsom School of Art & Design in 1978 as Kathryn Campbell and studied Fine Art for a while. By the time I took my first calligraphy lessons in 1982 I was named Kathryn Hinks. By the mid 90’s I had shifted once more to a professional name – Kathryn Deville – it means ‘of the town’ and I took that name with me when I moved from my hometown in suburban London to rural West Wales in 1995. I have emerged into the new millennium as Kathryn Dodd, a painter who writes words and incorporates them into the surface of my work….a shifting identity tracking a faceted career that has encompassed graphic design, lettering, teaching, writing and painting.
In my work I am talking about ‘Traffic’ the to-fro movements and twists of cultural issues and migrations but also the to-fro communication with our heritage and our ancestors - for me personally the to-fro dialogue with the dissociated self alienated through cataclysmic ruptures in psychological security. I think a lot about the ‘skins’ and layers that separate this-from-that and the ‘fields’ in which thoughts and acts are contained - the limitations and descriptions we use to delineate. I am interested in the power of names and naming in our psyche – the true magic spell of words. I listen closely to the ghosts that come my way and report their whisperings. If there is a good reason for me to stay here and work in Wales it is language, poetry…my work is a fusion of words and images and this seems like the right place to be doing it."
"There’s a growing assurance in these pieces, her colours here are factual external landscape planes, where she inscribes the surface with marks and calligraphy. The use of words here is as poetic calligrams and makes the work into a panel or altarboard. Such panels in medieval or Renaissance times had religious ideology here they are resolved as autographic maps. Subconscious figurative images also appear, such as the two ghosts in ‘Matrix I (Park)’ and the title of the accomplished ‘Matrix- lodged in the neck of the valley, arms flung back West’ imbibe the work with a resilient humour." (quoted from Chris Ozzard, exhib.cat. "traffic/traffig", Sept.2002)
"Kathryn Dodd is a highly accomplished artist who lives in Alltwalis in Carmarthenshire of quiet renown who mainly sells her work successfully in London and elsewhere. She took the opportunity to exhibit at this under-resourced, under-used and exceptionally valuable space here in the Carmarthen Library gallery which allowed her to see the work exhibited together. She was overjoyed to see how they worked and the juxtapositions that they made. A curated solo show would not have possibly given her that insight and this is the remarkable nature of this exhibition. It is an astounding accomplishment to see paintings of this quality filling so coherently such a large gallery space as this. At one level these paintings have a tremendous seriousness, they are full of layers of meaning, and meanings derived from her explorations about the idea of the ‘self’. They contain experiential subtexts and contexts with nature and the creative interactions of living in mid-Wales, the sweep from abstraction to figuration to calligraphy and glyphic making and marking. They are highly wrought and finished and also they have a lot of secrets inside of them. However, there’s another secret here too about controlling the surface and containing the field or frame where certain paintings become monuments, tablets or shrines like a poetic museum. I’ve noticed the more you look at Kathryn’s paintings the more something starts to happen— as there are words inscribed or etched on them they begin to ‘speak’ to you so to speak with a kind of dialogue taking place." (quoted from Chris Ozzard's catalogue introduction to the solo exhibition at ‘Recent Paintings’ – Oriel Llyfrgell Gallery, Carmarthen, April 2002)
Kathryn's latest project is called "Inside The Birdhouse". It was first shown as a coherent gallery installation in Leatherhead/Surrey in 2006 and represents a significant transition for her, previously known as an artist-calligrapher and painter. Exploring new directions is about development and is a complicated and rarely spoken about moment in an artist's critical assessment of their own work. Her once glyphic and inscribed paintings have changed into multidimensional installations which invite the viewers to engage in her artwork in new ways.
Commissions: 1984-98 freelance for print, display and signage, also private commissions for individuals, Borough Councils and businesses. Clients include: Designer’s Guild - London, Waterstones Bookshops, Penguin Books, Dulwich Picture Gallery, CB Design, HQ Perfumes – Switzerland, Ericsson; 2004 Illustration and lettering for Royal Mail presentation pack and first day cover for Welsh stamp series.
