Catherine Ko Chen’s work explores emotion and memory, and the ways in which both transform over time. Through layering and repetition, her paintings consider what we remember, what those memories become, and how they are reshaped through distance and time. Her time-intensive process becomes a way of observing how both the materials she works with and her own memories gradually shift. The resulting abstract paintings become records of experience, artifacts that hold traces of what has been lived and remembered.
Originally from San Francisco, Catherine is currently based in London, where she lives and works while also pursuing a career as a researcher in augmented reality. Although distinct, these two fields inform one another, giving her a broader perspective on the ways people experience and engage with visual environments, both through technology and through art.
In her series, vivid colours and expressive brushwork create compositions that immediately draw the viewer in, while revealing greater depth and complexity the longer they are observed. Chen is particularly attentive to light, seasonal changes, and the rhythms of music and literature, yet leaves space for each viewer to bring their own associations and interpretations to the work. Her paintings invite us to look slowly, allowing different nuances and associations to emerge over time.