Catherine B. Fine Art Studio

Catherine Berberich's Biography

After moving to the Bay Area, Catherine Berberich attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco, majoring first in Illustration and then in Fine Art and Interior Architecture. While working in the design field she continued to take advanced courses in oil, mixed media and watercolor. Developing a growing interest in oil painting, she studied privately, one on one with master fine art painter Ning Hou. Putting together all of her skills, she began and has continued to render images of landscapes and more recently, sensual flowers, especially orchids. She finds intrigue and complexity in the deceptive simplicity of nature's perfection.

Every painter has different skills shaped by passing images, life experiences and dreams perceived in imagination. From childhood onward, Catherine has always loved to draw and paint and has been expressly drawn to both, putting her whole being into her work. Before approaching a painting, she typically spends days in non-analytic thought, allowing the idea to germinate. When she approaches a blank canvas, she already envisions the outlines and contours of the work. There follows an outpouring of activity and self-reflective pauses, during which the original intent and what evolves co-exist, first in tension, then in resolution, a process that repeats itself throughout until the work is finished. As she mixes colors the work begins to paint itself. Changing moods and emotions constantly redefine what she wishes to evoke in the viewer. By hue and shape, through unconscious brush strokes at the moment, she gently pulls the viewer into a world of unhindered optimism, beauty and harmony. In order to fully capture the vibrancy, purity and integrity of the pigment, Catherine only paints during daylight hours.