Catherine Ward (b. 2000, Dublin) is an artist whose practice examines landscapes shaped by extraction, labour, and decay. Drawing from disused quarries, mines, and industrial sites, her work reflects on land as a finite and politicised material — marked by absence, scar, and trace. Through painting and moving image, she maps the residual forms and social histories left behind when these environments are abandoned or transformed.

During her Victoria House residency, Ward will develop new works responding to the subterranean geography of Margate. Focusing on the Margate Caves and Thanet’s network of deneholes — vertical shafts dug for chalk mining and later mythologised as Victorian curiosities — she will explore how these underground spaces hold both environmental and cultural memory. Working between surface and sub-surface, she aims to draw out the layered narratives embedded in this landscape.

Ward holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2024), and a BA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2023). She has received awards from the George Moore Scholarship (2024), the Arts Council of Ireland (Agility Award, 2023), and the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust (2023). Her work is part of the Irish State Art Collection.