William Catling, MFA

William Catling, MFA, was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. He decided at an early age that art was what he wanted to do for life. Catling taught high school for 10 years, then moved to Southern California to begin teaching at APU in 1991. As an artist, he attempts to address the loss of our natural sense of being human—that is, our deeply intuitive sense of ourselves. He believes we have become disconnected from the natural rhythms of life.

The figures Catling makes are rough, cracked, aged, reflecting suffering and the internal capacity to connect to others outside oneself. Such suffering can evoke the viewer’s empathy and self-transcendence. Viewers can embrace the condition of the figures, thus engaging themselves in the process of reconnecting by joining in the transcendent element of the work. The work does not eliminate the body’s suffering, but presents it as a condition for spiritual uplift.