Below & Beyond

Catherine Stringer

Exhibition Dates:
Thursday September 3 – Monday September 14, 2026
Tue-Sat: 9:30am – 5:00pm
Sun-Mon: 10:00am – 4:00pm

Opening Night:
Thursday September 3, 2026
5:30pm – 7:30pm

Below and Beyond presents a series of paintings and small seaweed paper sculptures which explore landscapes as places of threshold and transition.

Many of the works depict the surfaces of sea, rivers, creeks and waterholes, where clear water allows partial views of what lies beneath the surface, while also reflecting the surrounding rocks, cliffs, trees and sky. Some of these waters also contain a swimmer whose rippling image merges with water’s reflections.

The multifaceted nature of water allows depth, reflection and distance to coexist. The water becomes a vessel that ‘holds’ the whole landscape. Below and beyond are intermingled, neither fully revealed.

In other works the eye is drawn to the distance through kelp beds, open water or cave entrances, towards spaces that remain beyond our view.
All of the artworks in the exhibition depict water in some way, continuing a longstanding theme in Stringer’s practice. Water reflects and reveals, distorts and obscures. Water also holds, contains and connects, and is a fertile source of dream and metaphor.

The artworks in Below and Beyond can be read as metaphors for what lies beyond immediate experience: beyond perception, awareness, knowledge, understanding and imagination.