Cambridge may be small by international standards, but a surprising number of artists with global reach call the town home.
Catherine Haworth working on a painting of horses galloping through water. Photo: Viv Posselt
The extent of that talent will be on display this weekend at the Passion for Art exhibition that is part of this year’s Cambridge Autumn Festival.
Among those exhibiting – individual artists, groups and galleries – are those with a long-standing following far beyond the Waikato. Some have works in homes and galleries across the world, others have commissioned works hanging in major business and government offices. Some are relatively new to their craft, others have been around for years. Catherine Haworth is among the latter.
She’s a home-grown girl with an unsurprising love of horses, given her Cambridge roots. She started painting them for school-C art and pretty much hasn’t stopped since. Even while she trained in typography and design and during her early days’ working in that career, she kept on painting. She also did a course with Cambridge’s Wayne Sinclair – whose Sinclair Barclay Gallery is included in Passion for Art – working mainly in pencil and charcoal before settling into her preferred pastels.
One of the paintings Catherine will give away at this weekend’s Passion for Art exhibition. Photo: Viv Posselt
Catherine left town for a spell and began painting in earnest only on her return. For years now, she has been exhibiting and selling much of her work the modern way, through online platforms. It’s clearly working as she has received commissions from all over New Zealand and around the world – recent ones are from Switzerland, Sweden and Australia.
Horses, of course, remain a preferred subject, but there are a bevy of other animals she paints to perfection. So lifelike are her works that many people ask her to paint their beloved pets, big or small, as a lifetime’s keepsake.
Haworth has been involved in the Passion for Art exhibition since it was started by Cambridge expressionist artist Carole Hughes. Because she is such a prolific artist, she is never concerned about not having enough works to put on show.
“I am painting a lot of the time anyway. I love it … nothing about it is a chore,” Haworth said, explaining how she fits it into a life that incorporates the family’s jersey bull farming operation on the outskirts of Cambridge.
She retreats to her studio in their old villa each day for at least a couple of hours if she can. There are always commissions on the go, and she has a massive resource of images she likes to use for ideas, enjoying the freedom of playing around with those almost as much as the commission pieces.
“These exhibitions are great for local artists,” she said. “They’re an opportunity for people to get to know who is around and what they produce.”
The Passion for Art self-guided tour of artists’ studios is this weekend, at the tail end of the Cambridge Autumn Festival programme.
Catherine Haworth in her art-filled home studio. Photo: Viv Posselt
