Catherine Knight

These paintings document the changing colours and light effects from swimming at Vobster Quay from September 2024- September 2025. I set myself the challenge of swimming once a week throughout the year and taking photos during the swims using a waterproof phone case. I also take accidental footage while I am swimming and use screenshots from these sequences to paint from.

Cold water swimming is a meditative process and also an exhilarating one. As Nick Cave said (misquoting Roger Deakin): “All the interior conversations that you have about yourself or about the world are obliterated…you leap in with all your devils and come out a giggling idiot.” The painting project has helped me to swim in the colder months, because I am intrigued to see what a January swim would look like, for example, and each swim has been interesting to paint in a different way.

This series explores the shifting water line and the viewpoint from above and below and how this could relate to our inner and outer presentations of ourselves. Much water-related language is used to convey our inner landscapes: head above water, coming up for air, out of your depth, sink or swim.