“The senses are informative. I think we have a bias on intellect, that doesn’t help us with the landscape. There are other forms of intelligence,” shared artist Catherine Higham.
Catherine Higham is an artist deeply curious about the non-human world. Her background in farming – living closely with the land, animals, and weather – informs an enduring fascination with ecological systems, interspecies communication, and the cycles of life and death.
We caught up with Catherine earlier this year to learn more about her practice and journey as an artist. Her work features in the touring exhibition SICK AF.
Image credit: Catherine Higham in her home studio. Photography by Nic Duncan.
“Art has been part of my life since I was very little” Catherine shared. “It was my favourite subject at school. I have a memory of the first time I entered a room full of easels, and the distinct smell of paint which we used for fingerpainting. It was thrilling. Painting, paint itself, has always been part of my life”.
When she finished school, Catherine found work as a jillaroo, recognising early on the difficulty of earning a living as an artist. “I always thought, I don’t want to have to compromise what I’m doing, or be driven by commercial objectives, so I’m going to need something for bread and butter” she said. “And, I never wanted to live in the city, I wanted to be in regional Australia”.
Hailing from a family of farmers, it was a familiar environment for Catherine. “What drew me to farming was not the business side of agriculture. It was the space and feeling like I was closer to nature” she said. She moved from jillaroo-ing onto wool classing: the process of travelling to remote locations, checking the sheep, managing a team, and assessing wool for trade. “That took me to very interesting places. I met some real characters on the way. Some of the older shearing sheds are a destination in their own right and have their own unique culture. I think people bond when they share a connection to animals and the places that they are from,” said Catherine.
In between jillaroo-ing and wool-classing, Catherine began studying art at university, where she found a new sense of belonging. “I’m a very sensitive person” she shared. “You can be criticised for that. People don’t understand you, and you start to feel like you are a problem. It wasn’t until I went to art school in my twenties that I felt normal and found where I fit in”.
Working several different jobs and studying, Catherine found it difficult to find continuity with her art practice. “When I had children I realised, ‘Unless I get organised, how will I do it?’. So, I became more disciplined. I went back to university, and I decided to focus on smaller works. I asked myself, ‘so what’s my work going to be about?’, because it was really about materials and colour up until then. I realised, ‘It’s going to be about my connection to place’”.
In 2015/16, Catherine and her husband Geoff moved from their farm in the Wheatbelt town of Williams, to a smaller property in Manypeaks, where they lived in an unlined tin shed for eighteen months while building a house. “That was wonderful. We were really close to a richly biodiverse creek line and could hear the birds, including the Noisy Scrub-bird, crashing waves and the weather acutely. We could also hear the sheep, cattle and South Coast Highway traffic in the distance. I knew when we built a house we would miss this, but being warm was an incentive!” she laughed.
Not far from their Manypeaks property sits a quiet, protected islet, known as Djilliyiranup to the Menang Noongar people. It’s a special place for Catherine, and the source of inspiration for her work Posidonia Australis: Prototype for Listening, which she made following a deeply profound experience. “I was watching a whale nurse her calf, and I realised she was watching me too. She rolled over and her sounds – her vibrations – went right through my body. It was really moving. It made me think about how little we know about the sea. We study the ocean, but on our own terms. I thought, ‘I’d really like to talk to that whale. What would she say? What would communication mean?’ I became fascinated by the ocean’s acoustic dimensions. It was about listening, and just being open” Catherine shared. She refers to the work as a large-scale ‘listening horn’, constructed from bamboo and willow, interwoven with local seaweed and seagrass. “It took ages. And it’s actually shrunk a little. It was wet in the gallery and smelt like the sea, which I think everyone liked!” Catherine joked.
On land, she turns her attention to peatlands—terrestrial wetland ecosystems that have long interested Catherine for their unique biodiversity and ecological significance. “When I’m in areas of peat, I feel at home. I don’t really understand it, but it’s a nice feeling. They feel restorative”. Her fascination was sparked during a trip to Ireland in 2012, where she was presenting her work Still Life at The Science Gallery, part of Trinity College in Dublin, as part of Surface Tension: Future of Water. “I walked across The Burren where there are lots of peats, and I began to wonder about peatlands in Australia. You hear a lot about the peatlands in Europe, but it turns out there are peatlands everywhere!” she said.
“The grey between life and death really interests me, and peat is different because there’s not really an ending. It’s a process of decomposition and growth, so it is different to many life forms” she said. Catherine went on to explore these ecosystems through her Honours degree, relocating to Tasmania to research the extensive Buttongrass Moorlands in the highlands.
Image credit: Catherine Higham in her home studio. Photography by Nic Duncan.
In the studio, Catherine works across a number of mediums from basketry, assemblage, embroidery, weaving, photography, painting, and printing. “I’m not happy to work with one thing. I research multiple concepts, disciplines, and materials. I like things that take time. It’s practice-based research, and I find it very exciting” she said.
Clothing, cooking utensils, remnant plants, wire, canola seed, wheat, beeswax, pollen, wool, blankets, bones, and seagrass have all found their way into her work. She pulled out a series of sculptures – or ‘dipsticks’ – lengths of wood brushed with layers of beeswax. “These represent different forest ecologies. We had a beekeeper on our farm, who was very generous in sharing her knowledge. I learnt about the tonal variation in beeswax and honey, and began buying beeswax from distinct ecologies. These colours are special because beekeepers don’t usually keep them separate. They usually mix them all up. It is a very subtle difference, but contextualises the material ” she said.
Most recently, Catherine has been hand-spinning wool; an entirely new process for her. “I’ve been around wool my whole life as a roustabout, wool classer, and woolgrower, but now I’m on the other side of it. Of course, culturally, wool is extremely loaded and that’s something I struggle with, as the whole story of sheep is not an easy one. But it is my story, and a human story, and I try to learn what I can. And now that we’re off the farm, it feels nice to keep that connection” she continued.
At the time of our visit, Catherine was settling into a new home and life in central Albany, a move necessary for the health and recovery of her husband Geoff. In February 2020, Geoff suffered a traumatic spinal injury, altering their lives irrevocably. Since then, Catherine has been navigating life as his primary carer. “The role of primary carer is not well understood. Every situation is different; every illness, every accident, everybody is different, so how people recover is varied” she said. “You can lose yourself being a carer, because it’s isolating. You feel such tremendous loss; you just give everything you’ve got. Although I do not have a disability, every aspect of my life is affected, as it is for families”.
“For us, it’s also been about a change of identity. And pain is a huge thing. Pain in itself is a disability; its own little monster” Catherine said. “Hope is vital. We were told there was no hope, but we hoped anyway. In ways I can’t explain, the greatest joy has been found, unexpectedly in times of immense grief”.
It’s a time of great transition and adjustment, but Catherine sees the move as a hopeful new beginning, another step toward healing. “I felt like I had no oxygen at the start. It was two years without a day to myself, but now I’m much more self-ish. You have to be, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s essential, for both of us” she said. “We have support here, and I can be in the community more now. MIX Artists Inc and Albany Spinners in particular, have been incredibly supportive. There’s lots happening, and many interesting people in town who come here because of the biodiversity”.
Long term, Catherine hopes to collaborate with Geoff on projects that explore peatlands, combining creative fieldwork with drone footage. “Geoff likes technology. He’s familiar with drones, and the use of GPS for cropping prior to his accident. It might be a bit tricky to get started, so we are going slowly. There is strength to be found in our vulnerability, insights that I hope will contribute to wider discourse on the amazing journey that is life”.
You can see Catherine’s work in SICK AF as it tours across WA. Find out more about the exhibition here.
Story written by Kristen Brownfield