EP 10 Cat Coulter : Eco Trash Artist - Beach Trash Blueprint for Cyanotype Photograms.

Today, on the Art Seeker Stories Podcast 10th Episode I chat to Scottish artist Cat Coulter, who divides her time between Cellardyke, a fishing village on the Fife coast and north London. Here on her artist residency on Art Seeker Island, she describes her imaginary island, as she creates her own vision of ‘Hope’. 

 Cat’s work is a load of old rubbish.

 Her art practice starts with beach combing. She collects and re-presents found objects, to highlight the impact of our throwaway society on the natural environment.

The materials she uses are dictated by whatever the tide brings. Some are natural objects, but most are synthetic items either deliberately discarded or accidentally abandoned on the shore or at sea.

 Cat uses some of these ugly waste plastics to make cyanotype photograms, making deceptively beautiful but dystopian blue-and-white images, where trash imitates nature. 

 The viewer may not immediately notice that what they are looking at is actually rubbish. Cat invites the viewer to look again, more closely, and reflect on what they see. Cat aims to raise consciousness and awareness of the increase in plastic pollution, particularly since the pandemic and the proliferation of discarded PPE.

Each work aims to create, quite literally, a blueprint for change.

We take an incredible journey into a hopeful planet where rubbish is but a thought and a memory of what was, encased in a cabinet, frozen in time and history.

 The 3 artist  artworks Cat takes with her for company on Art seeker Island are;

1. By a woman: Untitled by Dora Maar (the hand emerging from the seashell)

2. Of cultural significance: Zellij tiled mosaics (Elaborate geometric mosaics made in Morocco.

3. Free choice: Rembrandt's self-portrait, with two circles.

Lufi’s Library Book Swap:
 Borrowing:  Natives: Race and Class on the Ruins of Empire by Akala @akalamusic
 Swapping: Robot & Boo The Beach Cleaning Crew by Leeanne Splatt @castawaycolor

You can find more about Cat and her work here:
 Website: www.catcoulterartist.com
 Instagram: @catcoulterartist