Website: catsivertsen.ca
Instagram: @catsivertsen
Cat Sivertsen is a multi-disciplinary artist. She is a visual storyteller, an arts-based educator and advocate of arts as wellness. Cat’s career spans 30 years with exhibition, commission and installation projects in public and private spaces.
Cat studied visual arts formally in Victoria and then, in Cat’s words “… her informal education took off whilst living in England… over the course of 15 years I embraced learning opportunities through experience in the landscape, museums and art galleries – I also concentrated on relationship building in professional and workshop environments.” Whilst living in the UK Cat took advantage of proximity in terms of material exploration working with skilled artisans in hot glass, ceramic and forging studios. These contributing factors helped expand Cat’s visual vocabulary and expressions in her work looking at domesticity, food sustainability, history and the patriarchy. This work is represented as site specific installations in galleries, land spaces and academia throughout southwest England, Europe and western Australia.
Cat moved back to Canada in 2006 and since her return shifted her focus from exterior expression into an interior meditation. Looking at notions and realities of aging parents, empty nesting, her own aging and death. Cat’s studio process is grounded in writing and drawing/mark-making with resulting artifacts like drawings, photos, video and/or physical installations. Cat has been involved in various group, community and public exhibitions. In 2021 Cat exhibited ‘The Covidian Garden Party: a coming of age’ at Two Rivers Gallery.
Cat is developing the next phase of her practise by initiating collaboration and seeking artists residencies. In 2020 (at the onset of the pandemic) she collaborated with 24 artists from around the world on an artists-book called ‘The Covidian Garde Party’. Around that same time she collaborated with an artist based in Germany through a postart card exchange and virtual residency. In 2019 ‘Playing with Fire’ was the result of a co-created project about wildfire during her residency at Two Rivers Gallery and the following week she performed an experimental piece that was realized during the Tony Onley Artsits Residency in Wells, BC.
