painting without expectations.
where will it go? what will it feel like getting there?
i am catie macwilliams, a boston-based contemporary figurative expressionist painter working at the intersection of abstraction, portraiture, and visual storytelling. to make art is to become part of an ongoing conversation that began long before i entered it and will continue long after i leave. i am drawn to the complexity of that conversation—the questions, imperfections, courage, disruption, and beauty. adding my voice to it feels like both a privilege and a responsibility, and painting gives me a way to participate.
i am drawn to the overlooked and the ordinary, to the meaning and emotion held within the things we move past every day. for me, painting is less about arriving at a resolved image than being present enough to discover what emerges along the way. my desire is for our humanity to be seen.
my practice is process-driven. a painting may begin with a feeling, a photograph, a memory, or nothing more than a spontaneous mark. vulnerability, contradiction, frustration, grief, strength, and joy all enter the studio with me and find their way into the work. i rarely know what a painting will become when i begin. i build through layers—adding, covering, scraping, drawing, changing direction, and allowing earlier marks to remain visible beneath.
there are endless possibilities when i stop trying to control the outcome and allow the painting to tell me what it needs. each painting holds evidence of its own becoming and, in some way, mine.
the work layers graffiti, symbols, words, and marks gathered across countries into a shared visual language about women, visibility, and resistance. voices overlap, interrupt, and refuse to disappear. men are essential to the conversation in understanding that she is not alone; she is creator, divine, and essential to peace.
this painiting was inspired by “the graaffitti truck’ in eastham, mass on the way to PTown.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
featured work
there are moments we feel not broken but interrupted; the world enters our being in fragments; we must assemble a new language from the pieces.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
gary clark jr. played at the newport jazz festival this summer, and a friend shared a photograph of him singing. the way john described the experience painted a picture in my head that i couldn’t stop thinking about — the peace, the love, the music, the feeling of being there.
after falling down a gary Clark jr. rabbit hole, i found this quote from him about making an album: “it was just pick a color and start painting. let’s see what happens.” — gary clark jr. so i followed his advice.
30×40 acrylic on canvas
the work dissolves the boundary between a woman and the world surrounding her. what she has encountered enters her; what she carries becomes part of the landscape. pattern, texture, color, and memory accumulate across the figure, suggesting how experience reshapes us until the inner and outer worlds become impossible to separate.
30×40 acrylic on canvas
the work asks the viewer to confront how quickly meaning is assigned to women—their bodies, expressions, gestures, clothing, silence, and smiles. is she laughing, hiding, or protecting herself from something she never consented to? rather than offering an answer, the painting resists assumption. it asks what might change if women were asked what they want, if permission were sought, and if their answers were heard—even when those answers unsettle expectation.
36×48 acrylic on canvas
between what has been and what has not arrived, there is a thin place to stand. sometimes it is not a promise. sometimes it is simply being able to see that the world continues.
acrylic on canvas 24×48
before the wind rises, before the rain falls, there is a quiet certainty. calm is not the absence of struggle. it is the presence of courage.
acrylic on canvas 24×36
the work begins with color, pattern, and the visual rhythm of an era, then expands into something more layered. a figure moves through blocks of color that feel at once architectural, textile-like, and remembered. as lines and shapes overlap, the body and its surroundings begin to merge. the painting becomes a kind of memory space, where color carries feeling, history, and atmosphere as strongly as the objects and forms themselves.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
love does not leave when a person does. it changes shape. it settles into memory, into instinct, into the way a family moves through the world. sometimes, with time, it can even feel deeper—not because the loss becomes easier, but because the love continues to grow around the absence. and sometimes that love finds us in small ways.
a feather drifting down at exactly the right moment. a song. a color. a butterfly. a sudden memory that feels less like remembering and more like being visited. maybe we have to be willing to notice those moments to leave a little space for the possibility that love is still reaching for us.
that is what i wanted this painting to hold. not only brittany’s memory, but her continuing presence. the purple. the gold. the butterflies. the light. the love that did not end. maybe that is one of the strangest truths about grief: the person is gone, but the love is still alive. sometimes louder than ever.
30×40 acrylic on canvas
anything goes began as an exploration of movement and color.
the work evokes a futuristic city—crowded, layered, fast-moving, and slightly chaotic. forms stack, turn, collide, and disappear into one another, creating a sense of disorientation and urgency. beneath that energy is the feeling of trying to find footing in a world where the rules keep shifting. yet within the confusion, possibility remains: when nothing feels fixed, transformation becomes possible, and something entirely new can emerge.
acrylic on canvas 40×40
this painting is part of my ongoing attention to the things we walk past every day without really seeing them. fire hydrants, sewer drains, gas caps, and other ordinary structures are built into the landscape so completely that they almost disappear. and yet they are here to protect us, support us, and make our lives possible. they wait quietly in the background until the moment they are needed.
for me, this connects to the divine feminine: the quiet, enduring force that nurtures, protects, contains, and sustains life. so much of what keeps us safe is not loud or celebrated. it is steady. it is present. it is there before we ask, and often before we even know we need it.
it asks what might change if we looked more closely at the everyday structures, and the everyday humans, that help keep us alive.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
this painting comes from a photograph i took in a boston stairwell—a reflection of a reflection.
i love photographing people taking photographs. there is something about watching someone frame a moment while i am framing them that fascinates me. the image becomes layered: the person, the reflection, the photograph, and then the painting.
it makes me think about how many versions of a moment can exist at once, and how looking can become part of the subject itself.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
watching my nephew takes my breath away. he is my sister’s son, he carries her magic, but transforms it into something entirely his own, then shares that magic with the world.
in this painting, his shadow becomes— playful, rhythmic, almost enchanted. standing in the water he moves his hands and the shadow answers back, as if showing him a version of himself that is bigger than he knows. there is something in the way we look at our shadows; the way we grant permission — to see ourself as bigger, freer, more extraordinary than we may yet understand.
acrylic on canvas 36×48
this painting holds many lives inside it. beneath this final image are nearly five other paintings, each one covered, transformed, and carried forward into the next. it kept changing until the shadow of the self emerged and pulled everything together.
for me, she feels like a figure of creation, love, and inner freedom. she is held in color and grace, surrounded by flowers and the butterflies they became.the work shifting again and again as the painting evolved.
this work is about transformation, becoming, and the beauty of allowing a painting to reveal itself over time. what remains at the center is her grace.
36×48 acrylic on canvas
a peek at the process…
“she is the key”
on the way to provincetown, we came across an old truck covered in graffiti, sitting in front of a barn that was just as marked up. we stopped to take pictures and stayed for a while—exploring, laughing, playing, and taking in the words and images other people had left behind.
in the studio, i began pulling in graffiti i had photographed in other places and countries, layering those fragments alongside my own marks, words, and images. what began as a painting inspired by a place became something about women—about the messages we inherit, the ones imposed on us, and the ones we leave for each other.
across countries, languages, and generations, women have found ways to make themselves visible: to write on walls, make art, protest, and leave evidence that they were here. at the center of this painting is a message i want a woman to find, wherever she is:
she, always and in all ways, needs to know she is not alone.
and men have a place in this conversation, too—but not always at its center.
