About me

CATHERINE MASON was born in Australia, raised in the United States and trained in Britain, gaining a degree in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London (1993) and a Masters in Museums & Gallery Management from City University.  For thirty years she has worked in the arts variously as an educator, researcher and curator, based in London and Burnham Market, Norfolk. She is an Ambassador of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich and sits on the Art Fund committee, Norfolk Branch.

In 2018 she curated CONNECTION : OPEN 2018, the inaugural exhibition at the Handa Gallery, Wells Maltings. See photographs of the exhibition here.

A special interest in the history of computer and digital art was fostered in 2002 when she was awarded a research position at Birkbeck College, University of London.  For four years she interviewed over 60 British pioneers of early digital art, and their artwork, experiences, collaborations and stories are told in her book A Computer in the Art Room (2008), as well as in a further edited collection of essays White Heat, Cold Logic (2008), published by MIT Press.  (For more on these and related projects, please see  http://www.catherinemason.co.uk/)

Catherine has wide-ranging teaching experience spanning the adult education sector.  Throughout the 1990s she taught art appreciation courses with Birkbeck’s Faculty for Continuing Education, the Workers Educational Association and NADFAS (The National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies – now re-named The Arts Society).  She continues to lecture to art societies, clubs and groups around the British Isles on an occasional basis. (For a list of lecture subjects please email).  Previously she worked as a consultant, organising exhibitions, running public relations campaigns and promoting artists.  This led to the foundation, with Alexandra Billam, of The Art Partnership, a visual art and PR consultancy which worked with many of the major commercial London art dealers and galleries. 

 Her new biography of the English-born, Barbadian-resident painter Janice Sylvia Brock was published January 2014.  See it on Amazon here.

Catherine featured in the film Cley Marshes: A Wild Vision, a film produced by David North for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Cley Marshes Appeal, speaking about the history of landscape painting in the region. It was on view at the Forum in Norwich throughout September 2013. Watch a short clip HERE (also featuring painter John Hurst)

ART@CATESBY December 2014: Catherine curated a small exhibition of Wells-based artists at Catesby Court, an historic merchants house on the Quay in Wells.  In aid of two local sailing charities, this show raised nearly £1,500.

SECRET POSTCARDS this was a charity project I organised in 2016 to raise money for the refurbishment of the Wells Maltings arts centre in Wells-next-the-Sea. Artists based in Norfolk (& a few farther afield) were asked to produce an original work of the size 4 x 6 inches. Over 120 were sent in – paint, pastel, print, collage, ceramic and even a quilt. They were then place inside white envelopes and sold anonymously, luck-dip style, for £60 a piece at the Hootannany fundraiser at Holkham Hall. The art raised over £8,000 on the night.

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