L’ARTE DI CATHRYN PHILIPP

Biografia

Czech Artist – Spatial Paintings

My journey into painting began long before I first picked up a brush. My great-grandmother enjoyed painting with oils in her spare time. She created beautiful paintings, and from childhood I admired her ability to perceive colours, light and shadows and bring them to life on canvas.

However, it was a particularly difficult period in my life that eventually led me to painting. I was searching for a place where I could truly be myself, where I could find peace, balance and the strength to face everything life had brought my way.

I couldn’t find such a place anywhere. So I decided to paint one.

There was just one problem. I didn’t know how to paint.

Yet from the very beginning, I had a clear vision of what I wanted to create. I dreamed of painting a space with depth, light and its own atmosphere. A place I could enter, if only through my imagination.

So I began teaching myself to paint at home. I experimented, explored and gradually discovered the possibilities of colour, light and shadow. The process of learning itself also helped me through that difficult period and allowed me to find inner peace.

My very first attempt was a painting called Cestou trnitou (Along a Thorny Path). Even in this early work, depth and light were present, with light representing hope.

After four years of teaching myself to paint, I finally felt confident enough to bring my original vision to life.

The result was my painting JSEM (I AM).

For the first time, I could see the space I had been searching for all those years. A place that had previously existed only in my imagination.

And that was how I became a painter of spatial paintings.

What continues to fascinate me most is the process of bringing space and emotion into existence on canvas. To me, a blank canvas is never truly empty. Even before the first brushstroke, I can already sense the space and emotion waiting to take form.

My paintings are not traditional abstract art. I create my own worlds through depth, light, colour and precisely defined forms. Spaces that seem to extend beyond the boundaries of the canvas, inviting viewers to enter through their imagination.

I do not wish to tell people what they should see or feel in my paintings. Each person is free to discover their own story, memory, desire or emotion.

I open gateways to your imagination, dreams and wishes. Gateways to your inner self.

My work was presented at Open Art Fest in Prague in 2025, followed by exhibitions at Galerie Ambit and the Salon Mánes exhibition hall in Prague in 2026, where my paintings received exceptional appreciation from visitors. My painting Nitro  was selected for the exhibition at Salon Mánes and subsequently for presentation at an international exhibition in Italy.

In May 2027, I will participate in Art Expo International at the historic Žofín Palace in Prague.

The difficult period of my life eventually passed, but I never stopped painting. Painting became my world, a place of extraordinary freedom, joy and creative expression.

Today, I create my spatial paintings with a smile. I am still fascinated by the moment when a space that once existed only in my imagination begins to take shape on canvas.

Once, I was searching for a space of my own. Today, through my paintings, I open these spaces to others.

And I am deeply grateful that my paintings have found their way to you.

Cathryn Philipp