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Cathy Cunningham-Little
Cathy Lee Cunningham-Little was born in Falls Church Virginia on March 30, 1953. She is the third of 5 daughters of Jack Cunningham, a radio operator in General Douglas MacArthur’s Allied Occupational forces in Japan after World War 2, and his Japanese bride, Akiko. The family moved back to San Antonio in 1950 and Cathy attended local public schools. Cunningham –Little is an accomplished artist and an independent business woman with studies and scholarships at a number of nationally recognized art schools including Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Art and Craft, UTSA, and others. Since 1983 Cathy has run a business in San Antonio called Cunningham Glass Studios. She has completed several public art projects in Texas as well as commissions across the United States.
Cathy’s exhibition record includes major venues nationally and internationally including such institutions as Museum of Neon Art, Los Angeles, CA; Mexi-arte Museum, Austin,TX; Columbus Craft Museum, Columbus, Ohio; Seto Shinyou Kinko Gallery, Seto, Japan; HsinChu Municipal Cultural Center, Taiwan, R.O.C.
She is married to the artist Ken Little and together they maintain a studio and home in San Antonio, Texas.
Resume (PDF)
Work Samples (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Style: Visual Art: Abstract, Contemporary, Focus on Color/Light/Movement
Artist Medium: Glass; Light/Neon
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
My work as a studio artist is an ongoing investigation using light as both medium and subject. I explore the energy embedded in subconscious perceptions and calculations, the things you see and know without realizing it.
I consider these works as self-illuminating studies in geometry and saturated color. They express color compositions in space and the structural properties of light. An emphasis is placed on the dematerialization of methods of conveyance of light and color to create a greater importance of the experiential nature of my artwork and the viewer. The viewers are asked to become active participants in a dialogue with the work as they experience the dissolution of boundaries of substance and space.
I create these works with minimal materials to produce ephemeral images of colored shadows and reflections. A selection of metals are vaporized and deposited onto the surface of glass which is cut to specific shapes. It is then strategically mounted on the wall or substrate with carefully positioned white light sources to create colorful shapes. The reflections of the glass shards are mirror images of the transmitted color, but they are not identical. They form asymmetrical shapes: the elements remain the same but the image and the reflections do not overlap.
These perceptual ambiguities ask the viewer to reconsider their preconceived notions of the real and the unreal.
