Cate West Zahl

Cate West Zahl is a painter working in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she lives with her husband and three sons. She first studied studio art under Lee Newman at the Holton-Arms school, and then went on to earn her BA in Fine Arts from Hamilton College. Her academic training was based in the technical study of life, a strong foundation from which she could explore more explicit abstraction. Her resulting abstractions are reminiscent of Richard Diebenkorn’s and push his discoveries in often new and exciting directions.

Artist Statement

“A painter can say all he wants to say with fruit or flowers or even clouds." - Édouard Manet

With this series of work, I have focused on bringing the outside in, and rendering flora within my studio against the backdrop of my window. I become fascinated with the negative spaces around the objects themselves which create abstracted compositions. Layers of gestural charcoal line are edited by broad shapes of oil paint; the pentimento is deliberately left for the viewer to see the journey taken. In a way, taking solace in the simple act of rendering flowers becomes a meditative practice, and the final composition might reference the original arrangement I painted, but also feels painterly and free from subconscious notions of what particular blooms should look like.