Caia Matheson

Caia Matheson was born in 1969 in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1976 she moved to Tokyo, Japan where she attended the International School of the Sacred Heart. After six years in Japan, she returned to Johannesburg for a further two years before moving to London in 1985. Caia Matheson received a Distinction in 3D Art and Design from Barnet College, London. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, as well as taking part in many well-known Art Fairs including The Other Art Fair, AAF (London and Singapore) and LAPADA Berkeley Square. In 2004 Matheson won Brighton Artist of the Year. Matheson’s solo exhibition was featured in BBC Spy drama ‘Page Eight’ with Bill Nighy in 2011 and her painting ‘Forest Fire’ was personally selected by author Neil Gaiman for his book ‘A calendar of Tales’ in 2013. Matheson painted Europe’s first rainbow pedestrian crossing on Madeira Drive in Brighton, UK in 2014. Matheson has been nominated and shortlisted for numerous prestigious awards including the Brighton Festival Art Prize, The Ambassadors Art Prize, Belgium and Luxembourg Art Prize. Recent group exhibitions include FLUX Exhibition, Design District, Greenwich Peninsula, London (2021) Turning Tides Festival Greenwich Peninsula, London (2019), FLUX Exhibition, National Army Museum, Chelsea, London (2019), Women in Art Exhibition, Gallery Elena Shchukina, Mayfair London (2018), Private Exhibition Stefano Ricci Flagship Store, Mayfair London (2017). Matheson’s work is present in numerous private collections. Caia Matheson currently lives and works in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Artist Statement: I explore the canvas with paint and sponges, dyes and brushes: looking past the obvious, discovering beauty in unfamiliar places. Immersed in the boundaries of the canvas I begin to create a world within worlds. There is no notion of beginning or end: just the story in transition that gradually unfolds in time. There are gates that open with light brush marks and delicacy: a revelation. Heavy laden sponges of paint open portals of darkness that construct patterns: a matrix. Texture shapes forms and the narrative begins... I paint in layers like a palimpsest. The first layer is the most superficial, literal interpretation: the final image. Hiding just beneath, the symbolic or allegorical second layer: look closely and you will see. Then comes the layer of the seeker, where comparative meaning can be drawn from: it’s a feeling. The final layer is the hidden layer, full of esoteric meaning: the connection. It is the essence of the work where I began: the seed that grew to the first layer. The cycle is complete.

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