Catharine Somerville’s two-dimensional work can be said to reflect the ‘Romantic’ tradition of landscape painting as per 18C painter, JMW Turner. Heightened by a unique colour sense and sensitivity, she mostly makes ‘en plein’ air sketches while on location and later develops them in her studio.
For much of her life she has lived/worked in England and Canada. Since this June 2025, Catharine is permanently an Ontario resident. In 2006 Catharine had a major accident which left her in a body cast for 6 months. This effectively changed her idea of what painting is and she completed a post graduate diploma at West Dean College/University of Sussex. Catharine focused on ‘being’ and her interpretation of ‘landscape’. This work resulted in her winning the Chairman’s Prize.
Important collections are held by the YMCA Irma Brydson Place, Toronto; Kanata Research Park Corp, Kanata, ON; Thomson Reuters Headquarters, Toronto and the Donald Wilson Neuro Rehabilitation Centre, Chichester, England.
“With each painting my eyes and soul serve my inner thoughts and feelings. The endless poetry of the landscape allows me to capture the experience of living and in the end are mutually revealed in a shared unravelling of my painting”.
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