K is for Kale

This watercolour was painted in 2026 on Arches paper.

This watercolour has been framed with archival materials and 99% UV protective glass. The framed dimensions are 22.25 x 26.25 in.

Artist Statement: "Z is for Zinnias"

The alphabet is one of the first things we learn. Twenty-six letters become the building blocks for everything we will eventually read, write, remember and imagine. For this exhibition, I have used the alphabet as a different kind of starting point: one painting for each letter, from A to Z.

There are no letters in these paintings. Instead, each letter is represented by an object, a flower, a treasured possession, something from a place I love, or an object carrying a particular memory. Some are immediately recognizable; others may take a moment to reveal their place in the alphabet.

My choice of subjects is one of the most important elements in my work. Red Shoes holds the memory of my mother and later my daughter both arriving in Canada wearing red shoes and starting a new life. A pair of worn moccasins and embroidered slippers can hold the memory of who made them and the occasion for which they were worn. Flowers can evoke a season, a garden, or a particular summer. An apparently ordinary object can become extraordinary when it is connected to a person, a place or a moment.

Watercolour suits this exploration because of its intimacy and its ability to work in great detail. I work in the realist tradition, looking closely at the shape, surface, colour and small imperfections of each subject. But the purpose of that close observation is not simply to reproduce what I see, but to delight in the intrinsic beauty of my subjects. The paintings are therefore both portraits and still lifes. They are portraits of things, but also of the people, places and memories that surround them.

The alphabet provided me with a playful constraint: twenty-six letters, twenty-six paintings, twenty-six opportunities to look at something familiar in a new way. Beginning with A and ending with Z.

To read Cathy Ross' biography, scroll to the bottom of her artist page here.