CATHY ABRAHAM
(b. 1968 Cape Town, South Africa)
‘My practice is deeply rooted in repetition as a material prayer. Invoking transformation and healing, these prayers address past sufferings that continue to haunt the present. Appearing as shadows in the overlapping ‘ghosts’ of colliding brushstrokes, such hauntings give form to otherwise formless traumas, the apparitions tracing the wound in its residue. My unfolding engagement with numbers, symmetries, and ritual action is meditative and devotional, a means of transcending the self towards an understanding of the interconnected, miraculous nature of all beings.’Cathy Abraham specialised in process-based art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, where she earned a Post Graduate Diploma in 2016 and a Master’s in Fine Art in 2018. Her work is included in the IZIKO South African National Gallery Collection, the Rupert Collection, the Spier Art Collection as well as the Kilbourne collection in South Africa.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2025 A Sacred Matter, Everard Read, London, UK
A Sacred Matter, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2024 A shifted season, with Untitled Art, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, SA
2023 The Fallen Sparks of Tohu, solo booth, Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, with Locus projects, Istanbul,Turkey
Yielding to the Shadow, solo booth, Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with IBI Art Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 22 Pathways, Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 9 Spaces: The abyss of deep time, The Fourth, Cape Town, South Africa
Featured artist Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
2019 A Deeper Kind of Nothing, Gallery at Glen Carlou, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2018 A Deeper Kind of Nothing, Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Undying Entanglement, South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Trace, In Toto Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 Essence, The White House, Plettenberg Bay, South Africa
2010 Memory Stains, IBI Art Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Stripped, IBI Art Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Naked, Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 GUT FEELING, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2025 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Locus Projects, Cape Town, SA
RMB Latitudes Art Fair, with Reservoir Projects, Johannesburg, SA
Motherhood, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, SA
2024 Artissima International Contemporary Art Fair, Turin with Whatiftheworld gallery
RMB Latitudes Art Fair with Reservoir projects, JHB, South Africa
Winter Collection, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2023 What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Seduction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Conversations with Irma, curated by Christopher Peter, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 Art/Out of the Ordinary, curated by Marilyn Martin, Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Seeking Eden, curated by Margie Murgatroyd, Casa Labia, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 My Mother’s Garden, Arts on Main, Johannesburg, South Africa
In Good Company, curated by Michael Chandler, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Domestic Departures, The Forge, Cape Town, South Africa