A founding member of the Atelier Circulaire, Catherine Farish has constantly renewed her interest in printmaking, experimenting extensively over the past forty years and developing her own techniques. "Geomancy" is part of a continuity and coherence linked to her work in printmaking, consisting of a body of woodcuts in the traditional technique, once again demonstrating her great technical mastery.

From the outset, Catherine Farish has developed a fascination for a purely visual language; the study of traces is at the heart of her approach, characterized by attractions for topography, in this case geomancy. In this work, she was inspired by satellite images and aerial views she had discovered, some of which depict villages very close to where she lives. These large-scale works on paper form lyrical abstractions that are both sensitive and innovative.

Image: Geomancy (A City by Day and Night) - 2023, woodcut (diptych), 30 x 30 in. each

Biographical notes

Catherine Farish is one of Quebec's most influential master printmakers. She is a founding member of Atelier Circulaire. In 2018, she was selected by the UK's Cicatrix project to represent Canada in an exhibition at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. Her work can be found in many collections, including the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Bibliothèques et Archives nationales du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Video

In the video below, watch the process of creating Geomancy (The Gulf), an engraving made with a steamroller!