Formerly a practising architect, in 2020 Cathy Dorman graduated in Fine Art from NCAD where she was joint recipient of the Fine Art Student of the Year award and shortlisted for the RDS Awards. In 2021 she was a recipient of the IPUT/RHA Wilton Park Studio award. Her first solo show 'Domestic Planes' took place at the Ashford Gallery, RHA in March 2022. Dorman exhibited as part of a two person show 'Double Bounce' at the Copper House Gallery, Sept 2023. Her second solo show 'Step Away Closer' was at the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar in March/April 2024. Dorman's work has been included in group exhibitions at RHA (2020,2021), Dunamaise Arts Centre (2019) (2024), Hang Tough Gallery (2021, 2022), Outset Gallery Galway (2022) and Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (2023). In September 2024 Dorman exhibited in the Wilton Park Studio exhibition at the RHA and recently (January 2025) completed the first segment of her fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle.
"My work explores and responds to site specific domestic spaces. The domestic setting of a home plays a significant part in the shaping and sustenance of who we are. Our home becomes a storehouse of our existence. It holds our memories, our fears, our aspirations, embodying the unique experience of each occupant. Modern architecture has changed the definition of home by accommodating its occupants in spaces that reflect their activities and values. My work to date has responded to specific iconic modern houses exploring how they redefined domesticity through their vision of a new way of living that was both physical and spatial and which held profound political and social implications. My work process begins by making models to explore spaces within these houses, a slow and pains- taking journey. Through black and white photography of the models, I investigate light and shadow within the space breaking it down into a series of planes, offering an intensely palpable experience. Using these images I construct my compositions and the paintings gradually emerge through the manipulation of materials with layering, patterning and constant reworking of paint. There is always something liminal at play in the work, small shifts of focus, an uncertainty and otherness that never quite explains itself. The depiction of furniture, architecture and inanimate objects in my work creates a sense of calm or frenzy, sadness or gaiety, a weighty stability or aerial lightness" Cathy Dorman