Norman Catherine’s first show was at the Herbert Evans Gallery in Johannesburg in 1969. Over his multifaceted career the artist has created hundreds of artworks in a variety of media, from drawing to oil painting, metal sculpture to wood carving, screenprinting to animated film.
Some of these works have grim themes, such as imprisonment or death, but almost all of them are underlain with a mordant humor. In his large body of work Catherine seems to consistently suggest that however bleak the outlook, life holds an absurdity that, in some measure, can alleviate even the darkest of situations.
This duality of darkness and hilarity has been integral to his work from the start. In decades past, brilliant comic book colors, such as bright reds and blues, have characterized his recurring imagery, which often includes half-human, half-animal figures, but in his more recent work Catherine seems to have metamorphosed his raw expressionistic style into subtle and dark explorations of South Africa’s post-apartheid society.
Paintings such as Deep End (2006) and Night Watch (2006) show a more somber palette and a more reflective humor than one has come to expect of Catherine. In Deep End Catherine presents a winged businessman teetering at the end of a high diving board, about to fall. His wings are too small to support his body and thus will not allow him to fly to save himself should he plunge into the abyss below. While the image of the nervous businessman about to fall is comic, it also conveys a sense of anxiety. Works like this one address global, human themes such as vulnerability. Catherine has replaced his anger toward apartheid with sensitivity to the difficulties and insecurities of people all over the world, now shared by those in a post-apartheid South Africa.
Many of Catherine’s works from the nineties deal with the idea of an alter ego, with sculptural pieces of figures with two heads. Locked in a constant battle of wills, the heads face each other, converse, shout, or simply watch each other out of their comically large eyes. Night Watch appears to follow a similar theme, depicting an eye gazing out of the pillow on which a sleeping figure lies. The man sleeps on, seemingly undisturbed by the watchful eye of his unconscious.With its overtones of surrealism, this painting possesses a greater subtlety than the bright, angry figures Catherine produced in the nineties. In the apartheid years the good guys and the bad guys in society were easy to identify, the moral high ground well lit. By the middle of the new millennium, dark shadows have blurred the distinctions between the two in Catherine’s work.
Night Watch 2006
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
Photographer: Rory Carter
© Norman Catherine
Deep End 2005
Oil on canvas
60 x 50 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
Photographer: John Hodgkiss
© Norman Catherine