An Excerpt from a Correspondence between myself and Dr. Birgit Szepanski, Berlin, June 2020 What I’ve noticed about Berlin is that people find often very creative ways to assert and protect their individuality, These can be temporary, such as in a photo booth, or the moments spent arranging one’s belongings while waiting at a bus […]
I recently completed a large panorama of Berlin Mitte, looking east towards Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof from a visit to the top of the Reichstag after I had just moved to Berlin. Painting this I can clearly remember the uncertainty I felt as a newcomer to a city I had never imagined living in. I felt overwhelmed […]
During the lockdown, I set up an easel in my kitchen and painted small paintings of the view from my window. My window faces a modern Plattenbau of apartments, and looks east down the wide avenue of Karl Marx Allee. Before the lockdown, every morning, I’d watch people heading west, biking to work, bringing their […]
Thrilled to post this critique of my work by one of my former professors: Jeanine Coupe Ryding Adjunct Associate Professor School of the Art Institute of Chicago Caty Forden’s recent paintings focus on modern Berlin. We see rectangular structures that loom in the city scape, factories turned into condos, the spaces around them such as […]
Very happy to share that my work has been featured in the Italian online magazine Hestetika. Check it out at: https://www.hestetika.it/caty-forden-i-colori-della-luce/
This recent painting of a nearby controversial construction site found a new home before I had a chance to post it! I painted it from a series of sketches and photos I made on Rigaer Strasse which runs east-west in the block behind my studio. Historically a zone known for its occupied dwellings and anarchy […]
After a lazy morning getting the most out of the morning sun on my east facing balcony, I walked down my favorite avenue in all of Berlin – Karl Marx Allee – to Alexanderstraße where construction has begun for the “tallest building in Berlin.” In the late afternoon light, a few cranes dangled their hooks […]
What I like most about Berlin is its variety of people, food, and architectural styles from different eras coexisting side by side on the same streets. I constantly have to stop to admire the lovingly restored turn of the century Altbau apartment buildings with their Jugendstil decorative motifs and elegant foyers leading into the hidden […]
On a recent trip to Italy we spent some time on local trains visiting family outside of Milano – stopping at every small town, sometimes waiting for what felt like forever while the sun shone down on miles of tracks, concrete, and empty stations. Sometimes the flat expanse was interrupted only by isolated apartment blocks […]
While traveling to Italy I stopped in Nürnberg and visited the Neues Museum. One piece, “Later…,” by Dutch artist Edwin Zwakman, depicts towering apartment blocks dominating a flat space with a series of man-made reflecting pools disappearing into a background of mist. The endless repetition of balconies, windows, and vertical supports begs scrutiny and the […]