About

Catherine Eaton Skinner works out of her Northwest and Santa Fe studios as a multidisciplinary artist, incorporating painting and encaustic, sculpture, printmaking and photography. Growing up east of Seattle, she then received her B.A. in Biology from Stanford University in 1968, while studying art under Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. The figure, human and animal, is an important element in her work and acts as a source of inspiration and exploration of identity, spirit and the paradoxes of human existence. Her work explores the natural world, its intricacies and energies that require a fine balance. Often using the Eastern philosophical number of 108, Skinner uses repetition of sacred forms, reiterating both the artistic and the spiritual dissolution of the self into the whole. The five elements – earth, fire, water, air and ether, foundations of the universe - also interact significantly in her work. 

Skinner’s paintings and sculpture may be seen at Abmeyer+Wood Fine Art in Seattle, Waterworks Gallery in Friday Harbor, and Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, CA. Her work is in numerous private and public collections including Museum of Northwest Art, The Henry Art Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Orthopedic Institute. She has been accepted in many juried shows, nationally and internationally, exhibited with a solo show in Tokyo, where work was displayed in that American Embassy residence with the Art in Embassies program.

In 2016, Skinner, in conjunction with Radius Books of Santa Fe, published 108, an extensive monograph of 292 pages with her multiple series representing dramatic experimentation in form and process. The hardcover book was printed by EBS in Verona, Italy, containing 172 images, writings by Elizabeth A. Brown and Newcomb Greenleaf, and her life chronology.  

In 2008 she released a book of her original art, Unleashed, a visual anthology of work portraying her passion not only for animals of this world, but our relationship amongst them. Her art is featured in the books, Speak For The Trees (2010), Art of Discovery; Exploring a Northwest Art Collection (2010) and Others Will Enter The Gates: Immigrant Poets on Poetry, Influences and Writing In America (cover art, 2015). 

Aside from working in her studio, Catherine has committed support to many non-profit organizations including: Pratt Fine Arts Center, Northwest Aids Foundation, Art Space, Santa Fe Art Institute, Artworks For Aids, the Henry Art Gallery, Children's Hospital Foundation, Art Fair, Artist Trust, the Seattle Foundation, SITE Santa Fe, and Global Partnerships. Her three married children, living in NYC, Brooklyn and Seattle, keep her traveling to visit six ever-growing grandchildren. Nellie and Abbie, her two Parson Jack Russell terriers, are with her daily in the studio.

See most complete Catherine Eaton Skinner chronology in her latest book release, 108

a summer sunday,

I lie on the cool mown grass,

I’m eight or maybe nine

 
old growth firs

stretch above, their

dark thick needles

break the deep sky

 
thinking of infinity,

no church pews,

no family ritual

just my back to the earth

my face to the sky

fingering the bird count

above me

 
my father

has taught me

all their names

 
climbing the hill to home

I do a superman

run, jump, and hop,

just in case

now

I can really fly

Catherine Eaton Skinner

2009