AN INTERVIEW WITH CATHERINE HOLTZHAUSEN ABOUT HER SOLO EXHIBITION TITLED “RESILIENCE”

09 May 2026

1. “Resilience” suggests endurance, but your medium—paper—is often seen as fragile. How do you work with that tension between fragility and strength in this body of work?

I think that contradiction is exactly what drew me to this theme. Paper has always fascinated me because of its duality. It is delicate, yet incredibly resilient. It allows me to both paint and sculpt, but it also has its own will. There is only so much I can control. The way it curls, hangs, bends or resists becomes part of the conversation.

The more I reflected on resilience, the more I realised it is not about hardness at all. We often imagine resilience as something rigid or unwavering, but I have come to see it more as softness. A willingness to bend without breaking, to move with difficult seasons rather than resist them.

That tension lives in the material itself. Working with paper has taught me a kind of surrender. It feels almost collaborative. And perhaps resilience is a little like that too. We have limited control over the weather of our lives, but somehow there can still be harmony within it.

2. In this exhibition, are there personal experiences or quiet moments of perseverance that shaped how the works came together, even if they’re not immediately visible in the final pieces?

Very much so. Resilience grew out of my own experience navigating burnout, anxiety, depression, and a long, ongoing relationship with healing. For a long time, I treated healing like a finish line, something to solve or complete. But eventually I realised it is less a destination and more a landscape you keep learning to walk through.

The exhibition really began during a self-made retreat to the Cape Overberg. I found myself deeply moved by the windswept coastline and its quiet lessons. Flowers blooming from rock and sand. Milkwood trees bent diagonally by years of wind, yet still growing. Days where sun and storm arrived in equal measure. It felt like the physical expression of my inner world.

Ironically, just as I began making the work, life became turbulent again. We were unexpectedly asked to move house, and what was meant to be a slow, reflective process became months of uncertainty, house hunting, and long studio hours. In hindsight, that unexpectedly deepened my understanding of resilience. We cannot compare storms, or how people endure them. Some seasons simply ask us to bend more than others.

3. Paper carries memory in a very physical way—creases, tears, layers. How do you decide when a surface is “finished,” or do you see resilience as something that keeps evolving beyond completion?

This exhibition really challenged my relationship with perfectionism. I usually make an entire body of work simultaneously and spend a long time refining each piece. But with everything happening in life, I had to work differently. I had to trust more.

I found myself repeating the phrase, “It’s enough.” Enough detail, enough feeling, enough said. That became an unexpected thread weaving through my process and the final body of work.

In many ways, resilience feels similar. I do not think it is something we arrive at fully formed. It keeps evolving beyond completion. Perhaps part of resilience is accepting that we, too, are always unfinished and learning that unfinished can still be, “enough.”

4. Your work often feels deeply tactile and layered. What role does process play in expressing resilience—do the repetitive acts of cutting, building, or layering become part of the message itself?

Absolutely. I find meaning deeply tied to process.

Last year I was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD, which helped me better understand why my practice has always felt so grounding. There is a rhythm to it. I begin by painting, which is loose, instinctive, and often a little chaotic. Then comes the cutting. Repetitive, careful, meditative. My hands almost seem to remember certain forms on their own.

Layering and assembling brings a different kind of satisfaction. It feels like piecing together a puzzle. But the final work is never exactly what I imagined. The paper shifts things. It asks me to adapt and surrender a little.

In many ways, the process itself mirrors resilience. Learning when to loosen control, when to slow down, when to trust, and how to make peace with outcomes that arrive differently than expected.

5. Your work enters a space known for ceramics and clay—materials also known for carrying memory and transformation. Do you see a dialogue forming between your paper-based practice and the material history of the gallery?

Absolutely. Although paper and clay seem very different materially, I think they share a kinship. Both are deeply tactile, transformative materials that carry the memory of touch. In clay, fingerprints, pressure and fire become part of the final form. With paper, folds, cuts, layers and tension remain visible too. Neither material hides its making.

There is also something beautiful about showing this body of work in a space so rooted in clay and ceramics. Clay teaches us about pressure, fragility, endurance and transformation. All themes that feel deeply connected to Resilience. In some ways, I hope the work enters into conversation with that history, offering a softer, lighter material that is still asking many of the same questions: How do we hold shape after pressure? How are we changed by time, touch, and weather?