Catherine Repko: A New Season’s Dawning

Bodies coalescing, fingers intertwined, ears meticulously hung on canvas, Repko’s figures feign human connection.

Catherine Repko, MATRIARCH, 2023, oil and marble dust on linen

By revisiting her childhood home videos, Catherine Repko explores how time alters relationships. Her figures are suspended and submerged in thick negative spaces. We are encouraged to examine the gap between the literal realities and figurative fantasies of sisterhood. Through this lens, Repko investigates how familial bonds construct identity. We are confronted with the uncertainties of nostalgia: what is reality and what is falsified memory? A tea set clad with Afro weave fuses the domestic place with its bodies.

We are confronted with the uncertainties of nostalgia: what is reality and what is falsified memory?

(LEFT) Catherine Repko, A SUMMER RECITAL, 2023, oil on linen

(RIGHT) Catherine Repko, HAND-ME-DOWN, 2023, oil and marble dust on linen

The work which gives the exhibition its name, ‘Gatherer’, explores Repko’s attempt to cultivate a lost time. A pastel and muted colour palette seems to speak to the ephemeral nature of time, space, and human connection. The outlined figures both withhold and reveal forgotten friendships and unremembered embraces.

A common motif that hangs in nearly every canvas is the shell-like ear, a highly anticipating appendage seeking to collect – or gather – reminiscences.

Catherine Repko, THE FOUNDING, 2023, oil and marble dust on linen

Repko was born in the United States in 1990. She completed a foundation in Art and Design at Chelsea College of Art, London in 2010 before obtaining a BA in Visual Communication from the University of Brighton in 2013. She graduated with an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2021. Repko was the recipient of The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation in 2020 and the Triangle Network Fellowship from The Arts Council England in 2016. 

Catherine Repko, SACRED, 2023, oil on linen

VISITING INFO:

GALLERY NAME: Huxley Parlour

ADDRESS: 45 Maddox Street, W1S 2PE

DATES: 1 December 2023 - 13 January 2024

Recognition for photography Courtesy of Huxley Parlour Galleries.