Being There

Cathy Shugg presents her solo exhibition Being There, a collection of mixed-media paintings created through the dynamic interplay between her immersive art travels and her introspective studio practice.

"Being There means more than arrival – it means being truly present, attuned to landscape, culture, history. Artmaking is my way of connecting, documenting and reflecting on my lived experience and the world around me, whether in a moment or with the passage of time.” – Cathy Shugg

The exhibition explores in visual form the themes of connection and presence: both the observed relationship between landscapes and those who dwell there, and the artist’s internalisation and expression of place, sensation and accumulated memories.

Employing diverse materials, expressive colour and evocative surfaces, Shugg captures the emotional and sensory resonance of her journeys through landscapes, cultures and inner states. Artmaking both on location and in her studio, the artist pursues a form of highly personal visual translation using a range of layered paint, drawing media and paper collage.

Shugg’s en plein air paintings - created on-site during her Australian and international travels and art residencies - reveal spontaneous responses to moments in time in changing environments, from urban chaos and village bustle to the calm of rural and natural landscapes.

Shugg’s larger mixed media studio paintings are a contrasting yet complementary body of work, emerging from her reflections and memories of physically 'being there' and her re-engagement with earlier on-site artworks, found resources and materials. Studio-based, they show a considered investigation of themes and a gradual layering process that blurs the boundary between memory and imagination, realism and abstraction.

Image: Cathy Shugg, Secret Garden, 2025, oil and acrylic on canvas