CATHY HEGMAN

There is a richness found in Southern storytelling like nowhere else in the U.S. and Mississippi produced some of the greats. Why Mississippi? What is it about the culture, the society, the land that creates this special and unique ability to capture the human experience so beautifully?

Whatever that is, it seems to run through other artists as well. Cathy Hegman is from this land, the Mississippi Delta, and her work are stories in paint.

"I form a bond to the figure in my work," Cathy says, "as they tell a narrative of something that is from my life, that I feel will resonate with others."

It's what Cathy's work is about - telling a story, but not the whole story, just moments in time that are "...respites of peace and quiet, even in the most turbulent times."

The painting, "Emergence Entrapments of Beauty" (2012) gives us an example of Cahty's earlier work. Comparing this painting to the others in the exhibit, we can see how she has progressed to more abstracted, looser work. The figures have changed somewhat, but it is in the landscape where the visual difference is most striking. In both "Weight of Balance: Tympanic Totems" and "Bridged" the landscape drips with paint, as the figures' dresses melt into it and the background comes fully forward forming a wall on the same plane as the figures - a complete unity of human and land. It is interesting to note that in both paintings the creatures - dogs and birds - stand full and firm.

Cathy's recent paintings would be termed "atmospheric," in art speak - what they are is moody, mysterious, ripe with feeling, deeply beautiful - they are from The Delta.

Cathy has a degree in Interior Design from Mississippi State University and has been a working artist for 29 years. She has shown her work extensively in national and international art exhibitions and has been the recipient of art awards in the United States and Brazil.

In addition, she has written features and articles for many of the national art magazines. Cathy is represented by several galleries including Tew Gallery, Atlanta; Fischer Gallery, Jackson, Ms; and Carol Robinson Gallery, New Orleans.

She lives in Holly Bluff, Mississippi with her husband, Frank.

"It is my hope to resonate peace in my art. In the midst of bedlam there is peace, and so it goes with art." -Cathy Hegman