Artist Cathy Mulhern has landed in Cheshire and is opening residents’ eyes to its hidden, and not-so-hidden, charms.
Cathy Mulhern moved to Wilmslow, from Dublin, in summer 2022 and has already found a receptive audience for her distinctive representations of some of our most-loved landmarks.
“I moved here last year and am gradually drawing my way around the place – it's basically how I am discovering my way around,” she laughs.
After graduating with a degree in textile and fashion design, Cathy built a career in retail and visual merchandising, working with Top Shop and then Marks & Spencer, in Dublin. It was a career however that only partially satisfied her need for art.
“I found a Masters in illustration, online, I could do part-time” she explains, “because I was constantly doing art on the side. When I had my Masters I launched a website and online shop, which was largely local work. What I do is really just bringing alive places for people, the memories and how we hold things in our minds. I really appreciate architecture and the vibe you get from a city, or a town, or an individual building so was drawing a lot of places in Dublin from that point of view. This led to people asking me could I do commissions for gifts – people's homes or one was a beautiful commission for a woman for her husband, of all the places they had visited locally during the pandemic; places they’d go for a walk, coffee shops they’d visit, as we were only allowed to go within five kilometres. People then started asking for hotels and churches as a wedding gift, if they got engaged there, or this was where they were holding the ceremony.”
A move to Cheshire, with her partner who grew up here and wanted to relocate to a new role in the area following the pandemic, encouraged Cathy to step up and into a new role as a full-time artist, and it hasn’t taken long for her talents to attract the notice of Cheshire’s residents.
“I was 17 years in Dublin, so was so up for the change. I chose to take a break from my career and pursue the art, instead. I am slowly building up my work here. I went to some of the local Christmas Markets – Knutsford, Alderley Edge, Wilmslow and Prestbury and they were really successful and encouraging, with sales of ready-made prints and commissions, too.
“I sold one beautiful one-metre-long piece of London Road, in Alderley Edge, for example, and the new owners sent me a photo of it in their home, which I love.
“I have held back initially on accepting commissions, as I wanted to build more of a portfolio of local places to showcase, but it’s really started to grow now – and the wedding venue requests are a big part of that.
“As well as one-off illustrations of venues, I am being asked to do the full stationery packages – the invitations, the order of service, a ‘map’ of the day, etc, which is really exciting and I would love to build on that.”
Cathy’s style is distinctive – vibrant and colourful, contemporary yet accessible.
“You can really see I have studied textile and fashion design,” she says, “and that I have a print background, because there’s a little bit of a textural surface pattern element to my work. So even though I predominantly illustrate places, I always add an element of pattern, or design, quite frequently through florals.
“I have a real habit of drawing flowers, and I like alluding to the seasons through flowers and trees as well – my Prestbury pieces have a nod to autumn, for example, and in others there’s cherry blossom. I always ask people if there are particular favourites they’d like, so I can build that in.
“My buildings and the architecture I draw using fine liner pens and pro-markers, and quite often my floral pattern in done in watercolours. It’s the colour, the pattern, the juxtaposition.
“My pieces of Cheshire are definitely inspired by my first time somewhere, which is why when I am doing a commission I spend time talking to people about what they feel about a place, or what they want my piece to make them feel.
“I remember the first time I visited Knutsford, we went to Tatton Park. Having grown up in Donegal, and being surrounded by the countryside and hills and beaches and the sea, to then discover this and have that association with how beautiful it was, and all the amazing foliage and the next time we went it was to the RHS Tatton Show where it was a predominance of flowers, and it’s right next to King Street, with all the beautiful buildings and the cobbled streets and independent businesses – so that’s what inspired me with the building up of the Knutsford pieces.
“Equally when building up my Alderley Edge piece, Up and Down London Road, I had drawn all the iconic buildings, in a separate piece, but wanted to do the streetscape and really represent the feel of the place.”
Cathy is of course still learning her way around Cheshire, but with a little help is discovering the places people have the hearts.
“Everyone I meet I ask – where should I draw next? Not just the locale, but the detail in the towns that means something to people. The Christmas markets were great for that, but also, I’d say 90% of the people who stopped would ask ‘where’s that?’ and then be shocked when they realised it was a detail of their own village they’d never even noticed.”
2023 may have barely begun, but Cathy has big plans.
“I am really excited about what 2023 will bring,” she says. “I shall gradually be building my print portfolio as the year progresses, and am really looking forward to getting more into the weddings commissions. I love living in Wilmslow, I have been surprised by how much beauty there is all around. I do miss the seaside – I have never lived anywhere that wasn’t beside the sea, before – but I am so excited about discovering a whole new country.”
