Catherine Haggarty – Stay the Course Exhibition

Tuesday, February 6, 2024 – Friday, March 22, 2024

Philip J. Steele Gallery

Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. MT

RMCAD is pleased to present Catherine Haggarty’s solo exhibition Stay the Course, featuring recent paintings and drawings in conversation with works created since 2014. Haggarty uses a range of media in her work including airbrush acrylic, oil paint, stencils, oil sticks, wax crayons, and graphite to create images with multiple perspectives of the artist’s life and artistic process. By exhibiting past and present artworks together, Stay the Course reveals the iterative and self-referential nature of Haggarty’s practice. Like a story within a story, or standing between two mirrors, images repeat and echo in other works. Materials that express the artist’s hand and images of personal items like cats, sneakers, drawings, and furniture, recursively appear in her work, linking her life to pictures. The artworks are about the work of making art, how that experience permeates her life, and how her life permeates her art.

“Stay the course” was an often-used phrase by Haggarty’s late father encouraging the idea of trusting the process and one’s goals. In addition to being an homage to him, another repeating theme found in Haggarty’s work, the phrase also embodies Haggarty’s trust and dedication to her process. Trust that each drawing will lead to the next painting, each point of inspiration will lead to the next idea, despite a range of subjects. The dedication spurred from her training as a runner and former college basketball player evokes an athleticism that she applies to her studio practice, both mentally and sometimes in her subjects of sneakers. Haggarty’s diligence, attention, and love for working intertwine and fuel her life as an artist. This exhibition celebrates and confronts the practical experiences of sustaining and evolving an art practice.