Catriona McAra is an experienced art curator and exhibition-maker having worked professionally in this field since 2006.
Interpretation, studio visits and public in-conversations are core to her practice. Catriona believes in elevating the exhibition text to a genre in its own right, and, since 2010, is frequently commissioned to write for public museums, commercial galleries and international magazines.
Catriona’s framework of a “feminist marvellous” involves working closely and recurrently with a range of living contemporary artists and writers.
As an art historian, Catriona also has a long-term knowledge and published expertise on Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Joan Eardley and Edna Lumb, among others, and is developing a keen interest in Kay Sage.
Select Texts
With Claire Cousins, ‘An Art History of Mars,’ Ilana Halperin: An Anatomy of Mars (2025). Forthcoming.
‘Organic Intelligence,’ IF NOT NOW, WHEN? Christine Borland, Michele Fletcher, Wendy McMurdo, Glasgow: Patricia Fleming Gallery (2024).
‘Amazing Ariadne: “The Sam Ainsley Effect” and the Red Thread,’ Wednesday is Cobalt Blue, Friday is Cadmium Red, GoMA (2024).
‘Sam Ainsley: Cocooning Wonder, Debunking Myth,’ ArtUK (2024).
‘Star Pennies: Ilana Halperin’s Geo-Heritage,‘ My Conglomerate Family (Digne: Cairn Arts Centre, 2022).
‘Ilana Halperin: Chaos Terrain,’ Boswell Collection, University of St Andrews (2022).
‘Kim L. Pace: Kindred,’ Arusha, Edinburgh (2022).
‘Rachel Goodyear: Stirrings,’ Grundy Art Gallery and Salford Museum and Art Gallery (2022).
‘Kate MccGwire: Boundary Creatures’ in Kate MccGwire (London: Anomie Publishing, 2021), 79-85.
‘Quest for a Feminist-Surrealism,’ 31 Women Artists (Sedona: Sedona Arts Center, 2020). Judging, catalogue essay and exhibition talk.
‘Flora Yukhnovich: Millennial Rococo,’ Sweet Spot (London: Parafin, 2019). Catalogue essay.
‘Mercurious: Kim L. Pace and Sarah Woodfine,‘ Danielle Arnaud, London (2019).
‘Aggregate: Fritha Jenkins and Edna Lumb,’ Corridor 8 (2018).
‘Kaleidoscope Eyes’, Dorothea Tanning: Unknown but Knowable States (San Francisco: Gallery Wendi Norris, 2013).
‘Be the Hammer or the Anvil,’ Generator Projects, Dundee (2010).
Select Exhibitions and Displays
Ilana Halperin: Chaos Terrain, Bell Pettigrew Museum, University of St Andrews (November 2022).
Flora Yukhnovich: Fête Galante, Leeds Arts University (February–March 2020). Curation, catalogue essay and in-conversation. Reviewed by Derek Horton and Jaroslava Tomanova.
31 Women, Sedona Arts Center, Arizona (3–26 January 2020).
Mieke Bal: Don Quichotte, Leeds Arts University (9 January–14 February 2020).
Ilana Halperin: Minerals of New York, Leeds Arts University (2019). Reviewed by Marion Endt-Jones and Lauren Velvick.
Yoko Ono at Leeds, Leeds Arts University (2019). Reviewed by Joanna Jowett.
Aggregate: Fritha Jenkins and Edna Lumb, Leeds Arts University (14 February–29 March 2018).
Laurence Figgis: (After) After, Leeds Arts University (11 August–29 September 2017).
Leonora Carrington/Lucy Skaer, Leeds Arts University (15 July–2 September 2016).
Tessa Farmer with Su Blackwell, Sverre Malling and Annelies Strba, Leeds Arts University (30 January–26 February 2015).
In-Conversations
With Helen Flockhart, A Bit of Mischief, ArtUK (27 June 2025).
With Ilana Halperin and Claire Cousins, National Galleries of Scotland (22 April 2025); LÁ Art Museum, Hveragerdi, Iceland (19 July 2025).
With Arpita Shah, Aberdeen Art Gallery (4 May 2024).
With Sam Ainsley, Glasgow Museum of Modern Art (8 March 2024).
With Michelle Williams Gamaker, Dundee Contemporary Arts (5 March 2024).
With Jennifer Higgie, Radical Spirits, Cheltenham Literature Festival (10 October 2023).
With Anna Watz and Daniel Weisz, The Medium of Leonora Carrington, International Society for the Study of Surrealism (25 May 2023).
With Susan Aberth and Laetitia Barbier, Channeling Carrington: Celebrating the Legacies of Leonora, Gallery Wendi Norris (6 April 2023).
With Mieke Bal, Michelle Williams Gamaker and Kamini Vellodi, Image Thinking, The Fruitmarket Gallery (6 May 2022).
With Rachel Goodyear, University of Salford (October 2022).
With Laurence Figgis (March 2022).
With Kate MccGwire, Marvellous Menagerie, The Last Tuesday Society (24 January 2022).
With Michelle Williams Gamaker: ‘Curating Fictional Activism,’ So Anyway, issue 8 (2021).
With Victoria Irvine, ‘Eardley’s Playpen,’ Scottish Art News, issue 34 (Summer 2021), 24-26.
With Rachel Goodyear, Hannah Buckley and Mayako Murai, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Henry Moore Institute (November 2020).
With Derek Horton, ‘Ilana Halperin: Minerals of New York,’ So Anyway, issue 3 (June 2019).
With Mieke Bal, European Journal of English Studies, 21:3 edited with Anna Kérchy (2017): 231-235.
Select Reviews
With Isabelle Gapp, ‘Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: The Glaciers,’ Burlington Magazine (Forthcoming).
‘Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy, Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool,’ Burlington Magazine (2024).
‘Kate MccGwire: Menagerie,’ Corridor 8 (2020).
‘Brass Art: Gestured,’ Corridor 8 (2017).
Short Articles
‘And Then We Saw the Daughters of Blodeuwedd,’ So Anyway, issue 17 (2024).
‘Hollie Miller: Geography of Fantasy’ in So Anyway, issue 9 (June 2021).
‘Green Feminisms,’ Artists Newsletter, edited by C. Bertola and R. Morris (2021), 27.
‘Snooker Studies with Lydia Blakeley’, So Anyway, issue 4 (September 2019).
With Jonathan Eburne, ‘Mujeres conciencia (Women’s Awareness): Leonora Carrington’s Agit-prop,’ Manchester University Press Blog (July 2019).
‘Malevolent Nostalgia,’ Fortean Times (2017), 36-38.
Catriona McAra 