Catherine Gutsche

Catherine Gutsche, artist

Catherine Gutsche is an Ottawa-based abstract painter whose work explores texture, scale, and emotional resonance. With an Honours BFA from York University, Toronto, she blends formal training with an intuitive, process-driven practice. Influenced by residencies in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland; Toronto, Ontario; and Orquevaux, France, her layered acrylic and cold wax/oil compositions evoke the rhythms of nature and memory. Catherine’s paintings, often on cradled birch panels, invite quiet reflection and a sense of place. She sees her studio as sanctuary—where colour, materiality, and gesture converge. Her work is held in private collections across Canada, the U.S., and Europe, and is featured at catherinegutsche.com.

Art as Sanctuary — Volume 10, Issue 2

Layered abstractions created in residency studios, from Newfoundland’s stark winds to the soft light of France, become Catherine Gutsche’s map of the inexpressible: not landscape itself, but the memory of place where stillness, ambiguity, and quiet emotional truth converge on canvas through her essay and accompanying paintings in Art as Sanctuary.