Catherine Hourihan

Artist Bio

Catherine Hourihan’s career has traversed visual art, dance and theatre in Sydney and New York. She has exhibited her photography in multiple solo and group shows in both Sydney and New York. Grants and awards include a Swing Space grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, in support of The Art of Falling, a multi-media site specific dance work, 2007, the NSW Artist Grant, awarded by NAVA in support of solo photography exhibition, Raw Glitter at the Slipper Room NYC, 2014, and a Creative Fellowship grant awarded by the City of Sydney, to create Legal Tender a solo photographic exhibition at Vandal Gallery, Sydney 2021. Catherine has also exhibited her photographic art in solo shows at Disorder Gallery, The Silent Thoughts of Statues (2018) and Back Stage NYC at Gallery 106 in 2008, on her return to Sydney after 12 years in New York City working as a dancer/choreographer and burlesque artist.

Her work has been included in numerous group shows, galleries include, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Australian Centre for Photography, The Kings Cross Photography Prize, Brand X and m2 Gallery.

Before she relocated to NYC in the mid 90’s Catherine presented Neverness, a full length multi-media solo performance at Performance Space, Sydney, and performed with Sydney’s Entre’acte Theatre Company at the Belvoir St Theatre.

Artist Statement

Legal Tender is a photographic investigation into value systems surrounding love and money in a post-pandemic world.

Catherine Hourihan, draws on her back ground as a multi media dance maker in Sydney and New York in this visceral and evocative photographic exhibition.

Mysterious, semi abstract imagery generated by projecting images of the body onto male and female models results in a series of photographs that are strange, sensual and of ambiguous gender. These low-key images take the viewer into a dark, beguiling underworld, evoking a sense of physical intimacy. They reflect on shifting attitudes towards touch, and the nature of connection in response to a world where social distancing has become the norm.

The exhibition juxtaposes the two great motivating forces in modern society, love and money. Our relationship to both of these aspects of existence has been impacted by COVID.

Imagery of a businessman underwater surrounded by floating paper bills references the finance industry’s use of water words, suggesting the perception of money as fluid rather than solid. The current movement away from cash means money is becoming even more conceptual, abstract, and intangible. How is our relationship to money evolving in a post-pandemic world and beyond?