I am an architect by training and a painter by heart. I collect objects of all kinds, objects I find in any place: the street, my work, hiking, markets and recycling stores. I love walking around the mountains of old objects that once were part of somebody’s life and seeing a new life in them… I let them jump out of the crowd and I love the endless possibilities of using them for something completely different than what they were first created for. I get familiar with them, I investigate what they can do, how they react to each other, to paint, to other mediums…. This is when things start happening by themselves.

I usually have a visual idea of what it is I want to do but always end up surrendering to what these objects want to be. Accidents and mistakes have always turned my paintings around and forced them to become something I never dreamt of…. I welcome and anticipate such accidents because it is then when I know something good is going to happen.

It isn’t easy to let go of an idea I have been working on for days and maybe months, but without fault, the moment I find the strength to let go, is the birth of a new painting, or object, whatever it wants to be.

CONTACT: catalina@catalinamadrinan.com