home

My most recent paintings were created in my studio in the Hudson River Valley. Winter is challenging, spring sweet and summer steamy, but fall will simply take your breath away. The Hudson River is often calm, reflecting the colors of the sky and seasonal landscape. Hiking trails are rarely crowded. The grounds of Staatsburg State Historic Site, Clermont Park, the Rondout Creek waterfront, Kaaterskill Falls, Esopus Bend and Sojourner Truth Park are favorite haunts. I paint animals from my original photographs taken on day trips to animal sanctuaries or farms, zoos and people's homes.
Much inspiration can be found on summer days kayaking on rivers and lakes in the stunning Hudson Valley.

Winter Coat
2023
30x40"
Years in the making, I used the paint left on my palette at the end of the day and the sheep gradually filled out.
Sold, Thank you Chris!

Things Found in a Garden
2025
acrylic on canvas
42x52"
Available through Wired Gallery, High Falls, New York
thewiredgallery.com

Double click to editThe Language of Things
Capturing the Ephemeral: A Dialogue Between Lens and Canvas
The paintings at Wired Gallery, inspired by a series spanning forty years, began while working in museums photographing historic objects. I started seeing collections everywhere, in mud flats, closets, yard sales and more. Everyday things revealed a story that could be told within the format of museum object photography.
In the studio I aim to re-imagine the boundary between the photographic source and the painted surface, offering enough detail to draw the viewer in, I seek to re-animate what the camera lens flattens. The resulting work embraces the inherent honesty of photographs, speaks to what defines a collection of objects and strives to capture that mysterious quality that only painting can bestow.
Working exclusively from my own photographs I treat the photographic image both as an end in itself and as a blueprint for loosely realistic paintings. The current work on display at Wired Gallery in High Falls, New York is the result of a conversation with gallery owner Sevan Melikyan. While technical difficulties plague the ongoing process of salvaging the original negatives, being able to enlarge them came down to one question, “Why not paint them?”

The original photographs taken in 1988 of my Dad's collection of vacuums and attachments.

Catherine Buchanan: Painter and Photographer
Inspired by the places she has lived from American Samoa, Hawaii and California to Florida and New York. She explored the South Pacific for several years with a friend while sailing a 40’ boat from San Francisco to New Zealand.
Buchanan’s background in photography includes documenting historic collections for the Museum of California, The Society of California Pioneers, the San Francisco International Airport Museum and more. She acquired photographic skills while studying museum photography in the anthropology department at San Francisco State University in conjunction with refining her vision and printing skills in the art department. She is a self-taught painter through sixty years of practice.
Buchanan builds a body of work in the places she calls home, currently Kingston, New York. Her landscape paintings can be viewed in an ongoing exhibit at the Ho'olehua Airport on Moloka’i in Hawaii, she works with animal sanctuaries in the beautiful Hudson River Valley photographing and painting the residents and continues her photography education at CPW in Kingston.

Vacuums & Attachments
2025
acrylic on canvas
42x52"
Available through Wired Gallery, High Falls, New York
thewiredgallery.com

All the Same Saguaro
2025
acrylic on canvas
36x48"
Available through Wired Gallery High Falls, New York
thewiredgallery.com