Catherine Bertola is a Newcastle based artist. Her works consist of drawings, objects and installations which often draw upon a history, collections and people.. Bertola studied Fine Art at Newcastle University before going on to work on multiple commissions and exhibitions both nationally and internationally.
Style and Themes
Bertola follows in the tradition of British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread “who excavate the landscape and narratives of the past and present, exploring histories through objects, place and recordings.” Bertola's site specific artworks look beyond the surface of everyday objects and buildings to uncover forgotten and invisible histories of places and people. She is particularly interested in the traces left behind and often incorporates these in new ways in to her works. The passing of time is central to her works, through using mundane everyday objects, she explores how time becomes inscribed and materialised through the things around us. Bertola's works themselves are always transient, whether temporary or permanent, the nature of the materials used mean that over time her works too will fade and decay. Her work is not medium specific, rather the materials are born out of what is suitable for the ideas and context in which the work is shown. Often Bertola's works are produced from 'found' objects, which range from dust, wallpaper, paint and thread. Bertola frequently indicates a particular era through the pattern of these 'found' objects, or uses them to form the design. A following theme found in a number of Bertola's works is the historic role of women in society, their craft production and labour.
Works
One of Bertola's earliest well known works is Hearth, an installation found at the Locomotive Works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Using the dust and debris she collected from the floor and walls of the former office of 19th Century engineer George Stevenson, she traced the decorative pattern and outline of a Victorian hearth rug. Dust, a material once described as the matter of history, connects the contemporary space with its past. The found dust is a residue of things that once were, whilst at the same time portray that the site has been unoccupied for some time. The installation attempts to remind us of our temporal condition whilst also invoking a romantic sense of loss. A more recent work by Bertola, Below the Salt follows a similar approach. Bertola used 42kg of table salt to transform the Great Hall's floor at Temple Newsam. With the salt she recreated the pattern of an early 17th Century woven linen tablecloth from the Newsam's collection. In the days when Temple Newsam was home to aristocratic dynasties salt had been considered a status symbol because of its great value. The unavailability of salt to the lower classes gave rise to the phrase 'to be below the salt'. The installation explores the social status and the different occupants of the house over its history, including both those who lived there and the staff who worked there. Once the installation was over, some of the salt was used to develop photographic prints of the work - capturing lasting images of the fleeting installation. A following work Bertola exhibited at Temple Newsam was In the Between Space, a film which featured three female dancers in the tunnel the connects the North and South wings of Temple Newsam together. The pathway had allowed staff to transport goods around the house and the choreography in the films reflects the repetitive nature of the daily work staff once carried out here. The film gives life back into the unused tunnel. The soundtrack was created from recordings of five clocks at Temple Newsam, marking the passing of time within the house. The film draws on two of Bertola's key themes which run through her works, those being the passing of time. and the uncovering of a site's history and people, in this instance being the historic role of lower class women in society. Bertola has explored the labour of women in Anatomy , a series of drawings of contemporary lace underwear created through pinpricks. The patterns of these garments allude to the traditional templates which had been used when making bobbin lace. The production of lace is rooted in anonymous female labour and the material itself has become characteristically feminine, domestic and sexualised through time. A series of works Bertola worked on from 2013 - 2018 is Sad Bones. For these works she used black and white archive images from Country Life magazine which depicted grad interiors of properties that have since been abandoned or destroyed. The images survive as the 'sad bones' of a place that no longer exists. Bertola momentarily sets alight the fireplace in the image, leaving behind scorched and blackened marks on the surface. In doing so she gives these spaces life again, while simultaneously destroying the image.
