Why It Matters
The conversation highlights how contemporary artists can reinterpret subcultural histories, like rave culture, to explore themes of collective experience and sensory perception, offering fresh perspectives on visualizing sound. For creators and audiences alike, understanding this cross‑medium translation underscores the relevance of preserving and re‑examining underground cultural moments in today’s art discourse.
Key Takeaways
- •Margate studio's natural light fuels Catherine Chinatree's luminous paintings.
- •Salon Acme exhibition translated 1990s rave energy into visual art.
- •"Quench" series reinterprets archival rave footage with contemporary soundscapes.
- •Chinatree blends hair product motifs with cultural identity.
- •Influences include Denzil Forrester and sound‑system painting traditions.
Pulse Analysis
Catherine Chinatree’s Margate studio, with its expansive metal windows, provides the natural illumination that underpins her signature luminous canvases. The space itself feels like a catalyst, prompting her to translate light into colour and form, a practice she describes as an instinctive response to the studio’s ambience. This focus on light connects her work to a broader conversation in contemporary British art about environment‑driven creation, positioning her as a notable figure in the emerging Margate art scene.
The artist’s recent breakthrough came with the Salon Acme exhibition in Mexico City, where she re‑imagined 1990s rave culture through the "Quench" series. By sourcing archival footage of underground dance clubs and pairing it with abstract, modern soundtracks, Chinatree stretches temporal perception, allowing viewers to experience the kinetic energy of past nights within present‑day gallery walls. The distressed, warehouse‑like venue amplified the work’s raw aesthetic, echoing the gritty architecture of original rave spaces and reinforcing the dialogue between sound, movement, and visual representation.
Earlier in her career, Chinatree explored the intersection of Black community identity and consumer culture through a series of paintings depicting hair‑product packaging. This early focus on everyday objects, combined with influences from Denzil Forrester’s sound‑system drawings and other sound‑visual practices, highlights her commitment to merging cultural narratives with experimental technique. As she continues to evolve, her practice exemplifies how contemporary artists can fuse personal memory, historic subcultures, and innovative media to shape a dynamic, future‑forward art discourse.
Episode Description
Catherine Chinatree is a socially engaged multi-disciplinary artist based in Margate. She works in various contexts, including in the public realm. Her work focuses on the idea of shared “reality,” with an emphasis on identity, dualism, and cultural fluidity. This exploration is supported by research in anthropology, social surrealism, and human behaviour.
Being of Welsh, Caribbean and Irish descent, she is deeply rooted in hybrid culture and seeks inspiration from the outside world of everyday life, our daily activities, symbolism, rituals, and the people she meets.
Chinatree’s recent series of works invites the viewers on a visual journey through the realms of personal and subcultures exploring ideas of youth, class, memory and nostalgia, it highlights optimism & transformative moments that can alter society.
Chinatree aims to evoke a palette that reflects the bass-heavy underground movement, artificial lighting and a sense of the unknown going hand in hand with the uncertainty of teenage years. At that time, pioneers of a new music genre looked to the future, with nods to outer space, and ideas of otherworldly beings, all of which are reflected in this work.
The Crystallisation of the urban experience is layered and sampled, reconnecting it with the present. Working-class youth - black, brown and white united to dance is a testament to sound system culture and the creation of a new reality reflecting urban Britain, black roots & experimental sounds.
With close ties to Leicester, Chinatree’s hometown, the work is supported by research and recordings from original attendees, event organisers, the venue’s history and future plans. Blending new footage, lived experiences and digital memories. Described by many as one of the darkest raves attended “Some shadow demon business”, the work illuminates its legacy.
Catherine Chinatree studied at Wimbledon College of Arts, graduating with a Masters in Fine Art. She was awarded the Ferdynand Zweig Arts travel Scholarship award, and set up a collaborative engagement project between the UK and Havana, Cuba. She has been shortlisted for the Mercury Music Arts Prize, Nasty Woman NYC and The Griffin x Elephant New Graduates Arts Prize. She completed an artist residency with Elephant Magazine and has been sponsored by Liquitex Paints. She was commissioned by Artquest for their 20th anniversary, which was subsequently displayed at UAL in Holborn, London.
Recently she was commissioned by Artist Globe for The World Reimagined project, which is on permanent show at the World Museum in Liverpool. She created a mural for Rise Up Residency Mural in Margate and as part of the Commemorative Installation Campaign, created a Tapestry for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. She recently co created a billboard Artwork with Kent Refugee action network, and is a panelist for Artcry, supporting artists to make work in response to social and political events.
Follow @CatherineChinatree on Instagram.
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