Cat Delett, a Maplewood resident and passionate artist, is featured this fall in the Teiger Art Gallery.
During Delett’s gallery discussion with the IB and Advanced Art Classes, she described herself as a “narrative artist.” Many of her pieces incorporate words; she cuts words and fragments out of old books, magazines, and any literature she feels inspired by and pastes them into the backgrounds and foregrounds of her work. “As human beings, we’re all natural storytellers,” Delett says. She fully embraces this storytelling nature in her work.
The stories in Delett’s work, however, are not always so clear; she often chooses words and phrases with ambiguous meanings that cause viewers to ask, “What is the full story? What am I missing?” In doing this, she strives to convey the message that people only exhibit one facet of themselves outwardly– one can never understand others’ full stories just by seeing their external expressions.
Delett’s beautiful artwork features various intriguing themes: she uses a consistent color palette with Payne’s grey, cobalt blue, burnt sienna as go-tos; she often features nude figures of women, depicting ordinary, realistic female bodies rather than flawless, super-model thin ones; and, of course, she frequently includes text in her pieces to tell stories.
Delett also paints many animal figures, often comically. Her portfolio includes a smoking rat, pigs in business suits, a ferret in a birthday hat, and many more quirky and entertaining pieces. She described these paintings as her “bread and butter” work; while these style pieces tend to sell better, her paintings of nude figures with collaged words are her “passion work”.
Visit Delett’s art show in the gallery, and check out her website for more information on this wonderful artist!
Thanks to Jamie Paradis ’20 for this write-up.
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