katerina rutherford

"Colour has a value of its own, colour is weight, colour is quality, colour possesses an inherent limitation, of itself, through itself, through other colours, colour creates space, colour is form and space. "

In 1998 Kateřina graduated in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. In the same year Kateřina co-founded the School of Seeing and still leads related painting courses. In addition to her paintings, she studies pedagogical methods for conscious color vision. She considers painting in the open air to be one method of trulz seeing colors. She lives with her family in South Moravia, in Mikulov in the Pálava wine region. She is currently organizing painting courses both in the studio and in plein air. 

Katerina, with her husband Mark, founded their winery under Art Wine Miukulov. Mark tends to the vineyards and produces a variety of red and white wines, which Katerina's students can taste during the classes. It is very unique to paint in the open air in the middle of our vineyards and not only to be there to smell and see the family vines, but also to taste the wines from each specific vineyard located under Sv. kopeček (Mikulov), Hlohovec or Valtice.

"I work with colors and the associated texture, mass, rhythm or composition directly from nature. Incredible natural color combinations are an unlimited source of inspiration for me.

Open-air painting has become crucial for me. The plein air is my personal struggle for self-denial and an effort for an immediate perception of color in nature or in the city. This self-denial emotionally directs me and leads me to abstraction.

The paintings created in the open air have their own lives and I no longer interfere in them in the studio. I consider a painting painted in the open air to be a sensory experience of color in a certain period of time when it is created. 

Life in Mikulov, in the middle of Pálava, is forming my new abstract journey of approching  colour. The local vineyards have became a recent focal point of my paintings, in which I let myself be guided by the landscape. In my work, I go through a kind of personal decoding of the Pálava. We have our own vineyards, so I can physically touch this topic. Therefore, I have realized how the entire character of Palava vineyards is derived from a single vine that combines with others to form a canopy of color and life. "


katerina rutherford