A new solo exhibition of abstract paintings by Ottawa Valley artist Catherine Gutsche examines what happens when art resists the pressure to behave as expected. Through layered colour, gestural movement, and carefully worked surfaces, the exhibition celebrates disruption not as disorder, but as a deliberate and vital force within the painting process.
Developed through cycles of building, scraping back, and reworking the surface, each painting carries visible traces of movement and decision-making. The works embrace tension between structure and spontaneity, allowing moments of imbalance, interruption, and unexpected gesture to remain as part of the finished composition.
“This body of work celebrates misbehaviour as a form of beauty,” the artist writes in the exhibition statement. “It lives in the tension between movement and restraint, where emotional currents collide and refuse to settle into easy order.”
Rather than seeking perfect harmony, the paintings explore what emerges when structure is challenged and familiar expectations are unsettled. Marks interrupt and respond to one another, colours activate the surface through pressure and contrast, and textures record the evolving dialogue between intention and impulse.
What might traditionally be corrected or refined is instead retained as evidence of the painting’s vitality. These decisions are not accidental but purposeful, preserving the energy of the process while shaping compositions that remain visually dynamic and alive.
Throughout the exhibition, colour behaves with intensity rather than restraint, and texture becomes a record of persistence — of choices tested, revised, and allowed to stand. The resulting works carry the aftereffects of motion, inviting viewers to encounter painting not as a static image, but as a living surface shaped through movement and thoughtful resistance.
By embracing misbehaviour as a creative strategy, the exhibition proposes a different understanding of beauty: one found in works that push back against expectation and stand confidently apart from polite predictability.
In Praise of Misbehaviour will run at the Art House Café Special Exhibition Space at 555 Somerset St. W. in Ottawa from May 1–29, with an opening reception on May 14 at 7pm. For more details, please visit catherinegutsche.com.