Catherine Bertola (b.1976) is an artist based in Newcastle.
Her work involves producing site-specific installations, drawings and films that address the invisible histories of women, whose roles and contributions to society are overlooked and undervalued.
Past work has often been temporary and precarious, with installations disappearing almost as quickly as they are made, this temporality is an integral part of the work.
More recent works with film, use dancers to feel and explore space, to convey relationships with domestic space, drawing on her own experiences and frustrations with the lack of value placed upon the hidden labour of domesticity.
Her work has been commissioned and exhibited nationally and internationally with organisations such as Leeds Museums and Galleries, V&A Museum, Bronte Parsonage Museum, Museum of Arts and Design (New York) and several National Trust properties.
when feelings take on solid forms (2022)
Three channel HD film installation with audio
when feelings take on solid forms, is an installation of three film vignettes
Credits:
Choreographer: Gerry Turvey
Dancer: Mati Torres Laborde
Cinematographer and Editor: Christo Wallers
Location: The National Trust at Seaton Delaval Hall
Below the salt (2020)
42kg table salt
Below the Salt was a temporary site specific installation made at Temple Newsam hall, Leeds. In January 2020, salt temporarily transformed the floor of the Great Hall, covering the stone flags with the pattern of an early 17th Century linen tablecloth, from the textile collection held at Temple Newsam. Referencing the 16th century use of the space as a communal dining room, a period when salt was a valuable commodity and only accessible to people of a certain rank.
After the salt was swept away, a small quantity was used to make a series of photographic prints of the installation, creating lasting images of this fleeting intervention.