Catherine Moore was born in San Leandro, California, but spent her formative, and awkward, teenage years amidst the neon lights and desert landscape of Reno, Nevada. In between frequenting underground alternative dance clubs, and running with the other “freaks”, she often turned to drawing to feel a sense of connection to the world around her.
In 1998, she returned to the Bay Area to pursue her fine arts degree and graduated from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco in 2004. She worked for several years as a freelance illustrator and graphic artist for local companies, organizations and small businesses. Looking for different avenues to share her creativity, she started exhibiting her work in 2011. She has since transitioned to full time gallery work.
Catherine’s oil paintings call the viewer to that marriage of classical and haunting beauty, resembling in subtlety and natural colorings the feeling of another time, when illustration was part information, part poetry. Her subject’s eyes and hands evoke a stunned silence as well as a dark humor and warmth that evoke a deep emotional response. Her illustrative compositions embrace a kind of quality where one can fully grasp the extent of details and attention put into each piece - every inch deserving of contemplation.
She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and in Germany, Portugal, and Australia. Her work is collected internationally. She is a member of the Copycat Violence Art Collective, which holds several auctions and group exhibitions throughout the year. She currently lives in San Leandro with her husband, son, and a dog named Elvis.