Wellfleet Adult Community Center

Monthly exhibit of Outer Cape Contemporary Artists - Catherine Hess

On Exhibit: September 1 - 27

Artist Reception: Sunday, September 7, 4:00-6:00 PM

Curated by Robert Rindler

ARTIST’S STATEMENT: 

I have been in love with making art since I was child, and in love with Wellfleet since I first visited in the ‘70s.  While I am inspired by the entire Outer Cape, my first love, Wellfleet, is the source material for much of my artwork. Over the years, I have created watercolors, monotypes and white line prints sparked by Wellfleet scenes. This exhibit focuses on my oil paintings of favorite places in this narrow land town dominated by the National Seashore. Most of these paintings were done onsite, or “en plein air”.  Others were inspired by photos I took when walking areas of Wellfleet. The exhibit includes paintings done at or inspired by our ocean dunes, Duck Creek, Great Island, Mayo Beach and along Chipman’s Cove, Burton Baker Beach and Indian Neck near my home. Many of these works were created using palette knives, some with brushes, and some using both tools, depending on what the scenes demanded.

ARTISTS BIO

A long-time annual visitor and later part time resident of Wellfleet, Catherine Hess became a year- round resident in 2021. While she studied oil painting in fine art courses in college, she worked primarily in watercolors for decades afterward, learning in community art classes and workshops. With her move from the Washington DC area to Wellfleet, and now having a studio at her home, she again took up oil painting. She also creates monotypes, known as “painterly prints” and white line or “Provincetown prints”. Although she regularly paints and has exhibited figures and portraits, her primary focus is Outer Cape landscapes, most often done “plein air” or onsite. She loves being immersed in the outdoors, and it shows in her impressionistic paintings of dunes, marshes, shorelines and iconic buildings of the Outer Cape. She aims to capture the feeling of a scene- its light, its movement, and its textures, for which she often uses palette knives. She is particularly drawn to painting the day-to-day, season-to-season, and year-to-year changes in Outer Cape landscapes. Catherine showed her work in the Washington DC area when she lived there, and more recently has exhibited extensively on the Cape - at art museums and centers, as well as galleries. Her work has been chosen for many juried shows and has won awards in several of them. This is her ninth solo show since 2018. She has been included in special exhibits at Addison Art Gallery and Garvey Rita Art and Antiques, both in Orleans, and has shown her paintings at The Works Gallery in Wellfleet since 2021. Learn more at www.CatherineHessArt.com.