Catherine Eaton Skinner(Catherine Eaton Skinner)(@catherine_eaton_skinner)
Catherine Eaton Skinner is a multidisciplinary artist working in encaustic, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, book arts, and poetry. Drawing on the elemental archetypes of earth, water, fire, air, and ether, her work explores balance, change, and continuity in the natural world. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Skinner earned a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Stanford University, studying studio art with Bay Area Figurative artists Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. Twenty years as a biological illustrator of Pacific Coast marine ecosystems still inform her attention to structure, pattern, and material process. She works between studios in Seattle, Washington, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her forthcoming monograph "5" (January 2027) gathers approximately 130 works from the past decade into five volumes, one for each element. Earlier books include "108" (Radius Books) and "Unleashed" (Woodland Park Zoo and University of Washington Press). Skinner has presented over fifty solo exhibitions and participated in more than one hundred group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her work is held in public collections including the Henry Art Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, Seattle University, Virginia Mason Medical Center, and Swedish Orthopedic Institute.
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Artist Statement
The natural world holds an intrinsic energy, an ancient equilibrium that sustains life. In today's personal, political, and ecological climate, that balance often feels increasingly fragile. Through my work, I seek to stay connected to nature, to others, and to myself, offering a place for reflection and renewal. My practice is rooted in the elemental archetypes of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Working across painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, book arts, and poetry, I let materials and their histories shape each piece. Beeswax, oil stick, graphite, stone, glass, textiles, metals, found objects, and paper are layered, erased, fused, stitched, and reassembled, each surface holding the traces of its making. I work in series, letting ideas develop slowly from one body of work to the next. Photographs of trees, water, sky, and fragments of text are reworked through monotype, archival printing, and encaustic, where fire fuses layers of wax and preserves the record of change. My work acknowledges both the beauty found in decay and the uncertainty of the present moment, and the quiet persistence of hope that remains. At its core, my practice is an act of attention, shaped by time, observation, and the returning light.
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