TOPOPHILIA: Landscapes of Belongig
The term topophilia - first used by poet W. H. Auden and later popularised by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan - describes the way that our love for a particular landscape shapes our memories, identity, culture, and sense of belonging.
This series of mixed-media abstract landscape works explores how we create and re-create our inner landscapes and sense of belonging - to each other, to the earth, and to ourselves - after loss.
Belonging is presented as a living process: a recurring cycle of coming apart and putting the pieces back together again in new ways. The artworks offer a dialogue between visual art, poetry, and reflection, encouraging viewers to consider how nature teaches us to thrive in diversity and to heal across boundaries.
Mysteries, Yes (2026)
Mixed media on canvas
70 × 50 cm
€750
Soft fields of sage, grey, and cream open into a landscape that feels both seen and unseen - hovering between form and atmosphere. Light moves through it in quiet pulses of apricot glow, like small revelations that do not insist on explanation.
Inspired by the spirit of Mary Oliver’s poem, “Mysteries, Yes”, this work reflects on the ease of not needing to understand everything. Scientific language may describe the world in detail, yet there is another way of meeting it - with openness, wonder, and trust in what cannot be fully named. It is a space for attention without certainty, for being held by mystery, and for allowing awe to arise simply from looking, and noticing, and responding with quiet joy.
The Sun’s Birthday (2026)
Mixed media on canvas
70 × 50 cm
€750
Light returns in fresh greens and yellows, the colors of new leaves and open sky. Wild foliage lifts into brightness, carrying the simple joy of sunlight, air, and movement. The painting holds the feeling of a world beginning again.
Echoing the spirit of ee cummings’ poem, “i thank You God for most this amazing”, this work celebrates the astonishment of being alive in the present moment - the sensory delight of color, light, and growth, and a quiet gratitude and hope that life continues to unfold toward the light.
Nothing Is Wasted (2026)
Mixed media on canvas
60 × 70 cm
€895
Beneath a narrow horizon, the ground holds the slow labor of breakdown and becoming: fragments, losses, and buried seasons turning quietly into nourishment. In the dark there is movement - roots searching, matter loosening, life rearranging itself.
This work reflects on the patience required to tend the soil rather than forcing growth, trusting that failure and loss are not wasted. Instead, they become nourishing compost for what comes next.
No ray of light could fathom the landscape of awe (2026)
Mixed media on canvas
70 × 60 cm
€895
Named after a line from Andrea Gibson’s poem For the Days I Stop Wanting a Body, this abstract landscape unfolds in soft pinks, terracottas, greys, and blues, with textured layers of paint and paper, and restless linework suggesting both tenderness and rupture. Messy marks, scratches, and tangled lines move across the surface like traces of wounds, cuts, or careful attempts to stitch and mend what has been hurt. Smooth, vulnerable fleshy hues bleed into atmospheric, sky-like forms, while flashes of light and scattered speckles evoke stars, salt, goosebumps, or the lingering imprint of touch, grief, and healing. Like the poem, the work reflects on both the wounds and the wonder of being in a body - fragile, imperfect, and fleeting, yet the only place we can experience pleasure and pain, longing and belonging.
Now Hemmed In, Now Grasping All (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
100 × 120 cm
€2300
This watery abstract landscape reflects the movement between the grief of loss and the grace of renewal described in Rilke’s poem, “Evening”. Vertical divisions evoke borders between nations and selves, while soft gradients open toward moments of connection and transcendence. Like the poem, the work expresses the delicate balance of being human: shaped by limits, yet continually reaching toward connection and new beginnings.
Red Dust and Eucalyptus (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
100 × 120 cm
SOLD
Created as a commission for a couple living in rural Dubbo, this richly textured collage evokes the colours, patterns, and sensory qualities of their landscape. Layered and recycled painted papers reflect the cracked red soils and peeling eucalyptus bark, while shapes inspired by aerial views echo the patchwork of the vast terrain. The work captures a tactile, immersive sense of place through texture, colour, and form.
What the Falling Leaves Whisper Back (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
90 × 80 cm
SOLD
This abstract landscape captures the shimmer of autumn trees mirrored in still water - a moment of quiet release and radiant colour. This poem written in response by Cath’s friend, Beth Baugh, captures the artwork’s spirit of gentle surrender:
There is joy / In letting go, / In flying into / The unknown / With abandon, / Seeing / How the sunlight / Illuminates our friends / And finally realizing / We shine as brightly.
The painting invites viewers into that same recognition: the beauty in release, the glow in one another, and the light we carry within ourselves.
You Too Have Come Into the World To Do This (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
90 × 80 cm
SOLD
The title of this work comes from the closing lines of Mary Oliver’s poem, “When I Am Among the Trees”, which read, “…and you too have come / into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled / with light, and to shine.” As I created this piece, I practised that invitation: to go easy, loosen my grip, and trust the process. The work carries that sense of openness and light - a reminder that beauty, meaning, and belonging can unfold when we allow ourselves simply to be.
What the Wind Wants You To Know (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
80 × 80 cm
€1280
Created through an intuitive process of choosing textures, shapes, and colours that felt alive in the moment, this abstract landscape reflects the gentle guidance nature offers. The work evokes the way wind, weather, and open spaces can steady us, reveal quiet wisdom, and reconnect us to something larger than ourselves. In its layered fragments and flowing forms, the painting suggests how the natural world speaks - not in words, but through sensations, metaphors, and moments of stillness that invite us to listen.
Inside This Soft World (2026)
Mixed media on canvas
40 × 40 cm
€450
The foreground of this abstract seascape is filled with textured grasses and scattered traces, like small treasures left behind along a path. The artwork reflects on the quiet practice of paying attention as a form of care - of learning to track the soul the way we might track animals in the wild, by noticing the small signs of aliveness it leaves behind. It speaks to the importance of staying curious and awake to delight, longing, tenderness, and awe, protecting them from disappearing beneath obligation, fear, numbness, or speed. Looking back at the work, I found myself returning to Mary Oliver’s poem Mindful, and especially the lines, “to look, to listen, / to lose myself / inside this soft world - / to instruct myself / over and over / in joy.” Hidden among the layers of landscape is a gentle question: do you see the tracks your soul is leaving for you?
Even the Hard Edges Sing (2025)
Mixed media wood panel
30 × 30 cm
SOLD
Composed of sharp shapes and strong divisions, this piece embraces the presence of hard edges. While boundaries can feel confining, they can also offer clarity, simplicity, and a place to begin. In this artwork, distinct colours and textures meet without blending, revealing how contrast itself can create harmony. Even the Hard Edges Sing suggests that beauty is found not only in softness, but also in the places where differences stand side by side and illuminate one another.
Even Before The View Appears (2026)
Mixed media on wood panel
30 × 30 cm
€395 (including natural wood floating frame)
This abstract landscape formed through layers of warm colour and textured marks, with a high horizon that might be hills, mountains, or perhaps an old stone wall catching the sun. A tall, narrow tree stands in the foreground, a quiet presence pointing the way within a wide and rising land. The artwork holds memories and stories of those times in life when the path rises steeply, we know the journey will be long, and we have no idea how we’ll ever reach the higher places - or even whether the long, hard climb will be worth it. This small artwork reflects on learning to move forward without rushing, drawing on patience, hope, and the small sustaining joys that help us continue the climb long before the views and rewards appear.
What If We Stay Open Anyway?
Mixed media on wood panel
30 x 30 cm
€395, including natural wood floating frame
Soft, interwoven forms in greys, blues, and browns hold the composition, bringing a sense of calm and steadiness, while touches of pink and deep red move through the surface like something more tender and alive. This artwork reflects on the courage of vulnerability - on what it means to keep our hearts open even when we know they may be hurt. To love something or someone is to risk loss, to feel deeply, to remain soft in a world that can have sharp edges. And yet, within the stillness of the landscape, there is a quiet reassurance: a sense that openness itself is an act of courage - that continuing to feel and to love is its own kind of resilience and evidence that all is well.
Here, held in the light (2026)
Mixed media on wood
30 × 30 cm
€395, including natural wood floating frame
An abstract seascape in soft yellows, lilacs, and ochres, with layered forms suggesting water and sand held in warm light. This artwork is a reflection on the quiet delight of being in a body - even one that is vulnerable, struggling, or faltering. It holds an invitation to slow down enough to notice how extraordinary it can be to feel, to be present, and to inhabit this fleeting, sensory life: salt on the lips, warmth on the face, and the gentle rhythm of breath.
Tethered in the Drift (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
70 × 80 cm
€1200
Soft blues, terracottas, and ochres form an abstract landscape where land-like shapes tilt and hang from sky-like colour blocks. The work evokes moments of disorientation, uncertainty, and grief - when the ground seems to slip away and what we thought we knew is no longer certain. Yet within these shifting forms and colours, if we look for it, there is still always a tether: a sense of grounding, connection, and balance.
As the Sun Moves Through the Sky (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
70 × 80 cm
€1200
In the foreground, sky appears where land might be expected, suggesting the deep interconnectedness between the two. Like so much in life that we speak of as separate - people from one another, or humans from nature - sky and land are, in truth, continuous. Air moves not only above us but through soil, water, and every living being, entering our bodies with each breath. This painting reflects that shared, porous world: one atmosphere, one ecology, one belonging.
The Sky Was (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
80 × 70 cm
€1200
This work began in pure delight - an immersion in the colours, textures, and vastness of the sky. I wanted the sky and land to feel integrated rather than separate or hierarchical, because in truth they belong to one another, despite the divisions we often impose in our minds. The process was playful and sensory, guided by the simple joy of exploring colour, shape, and movement. The resulting artwork feels open and cheerful, peaceful yet alive. When I later read E.E Cummings’ poem, “The Sky Was”, it felt as though we had been looking at the very same sky.
Everything Falling, Everything Rising (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
70 × 80 cm
€1200
This abstract seascape, set beneath a high horizon, moves in the same rhythms that shape both nature and human life. Its layered forms could be rising toward the light or drifting downward from it - mirroring how our emotions, energy, successes, and even our breath rise and fall. Like tides that ebb and return, the work reflects the cyclical movement of the natural world. It suggests that to rise and to fall is not failure, but part of being human, alive, and deeply connected to the earth to which we belong.
Cold Air, Open Heart (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
40 × 40 cm
€450
Soft browns, blues, and creams shape this abstract winter landscape, echoing the clarity and quiet beauty of a cold-weather walk. It reflects the way crisp air can clear the mind, invigorate the body, and gently open the heart. The artwork also speaks to the gifts that wait just beyond our comfort zones - those moments when what first feels inhospitable becomes nourishing once we step into it with curiosity and courage.
Sunburnt Sands and Sky Everywhere (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
50 × 50 cm
€600
This abstract landscape weaves terracotta and blue into a quiet dialogue between earth and sky. Land and atmosphere slip into one another, creating a delicate balance between groundedness and openness. The piece reflects the way these forces - solidity and spaciousness, rootedness and expansion - coexist in constant relationship, shaping both the natural world and our inner landscapes.
Harbourless Blue (2025)
Mixed media on wood panel
40 × 50 cm
SOLD
This abstract seascape speaks to the experience of uncertainty - of moving through life without a clear harbour to rest in, and with future shores still out of sight. It invites a shift of attention: to notice the beauty of the present moment, even when it is temporary, and perhaps especially because it is temporary. Harbourless Blue is a reminder not to let fear of the unknown eclipse what is luminous and available right now, in the in-between spaces where we often grow the most.
Mount the Hidden Tide and Travel Back Home (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
150 × 120 cm
SOLD
Inspired by Hafiz’s poem, “All the Hemispheres”, this abstract seascape is about an inner journey. Boat-like forms drift across a shoreline toward the glow of a sun, moon, or the poem’s “Great Circle inside of You” rising on the horizon. Rich reds and pinks in chamber-like shapes evoke the feeling of being inside a living heart. The work speaks to the quiet courage of traveling beyond what is familiar, and the deeper voyage of finding your way back home to yourself - the birthplace of all belonging.
Carried By a Sea That Also Lives in Me (2025)
Mixed mediaon wood panel
30 × 30 cm
SOLD
This small abstract seascape evokes the constant movement and depth of the ocean - both around us and within us. Layered textures and flowing forms suggest how we are carried by forces larger than ourselves, yet intimately connected to them. The work reflects the ebb and flow of life, emotions, and experience, reminding us that the currents of the world, nature, and of our own hearts are all inseparable.
Room to grow (2026)
Mixed media on wood panel
30 × 30cm
SOLD
This abstract landscape swirls in bright greens and blues, with textured layers suggesting rolling hills, deep seas, and fertile ground stretching into the distance. It speaks to the feeling of standing at the edge of something - a place that feels too small to stay, yet safe enough to hesitate. The crossing ahead can look like a chasm, carrying the risk of falling or losing our footing, and the fear that we might not make it across. And yet, within the landscape, there is a quiet reassurance: a place where the crossing is safe, where the leap is held. A remembering that when we decide to trust and step beyond what is known, we may discover on the other side a wider, greener space with more room to breathe, move, and grow.
Seeds of Belonging (2025)
Mixed media on wood panel
44.5 × 44.5 cm
€695, including frame
Each of these nine small abstract landscapes stands beautifully on its own, yet together they form a larger image: a grafted fruit tree. Like Flourishing Graft, Seeds of Belonging explores how connection and difference can grow side by side, and how diverse parts can come together to create new life. Each panel represents an individual contribution - a small act of tending, belonging, or hope. When joined, they form something greater: a vision of what becomes possible when we care for one another and for the world we share.
Flourishing Graft (2025)
Mixed media on canvas
100 × 100 cm
SOLD
Flourishing Graft depicts a grafted fruit tree bearing both lemons and oranges - a vision of harmony through difference. Its overlapping circles represent fruit, family, and the relational worlds that make up our societies and sense of belonging. In an age of ecological and social fragmentation, Flourishing Graft offers a hopeful metaphor for resilience: that flourishing is possible through diversity and interdependence.
Interested in owning one of these artworks?
These artworks and my other collections of artwork are all available to buy, and I also accept commissions to create custom original art.
I’m based in the Netherlands and I ship both locally and internationally. Shipping costs are additional. I’ll gladly get you a shipping quote.
Please email me at cath@cathduncan.com or whatsapp me on +31-6-27-97-73-66 if you’d like to discuss or order art. I’m very happy to schedule a studio visit or a call if you’d like to view the artwork via a live video link. Once you’ve chosen your art, I’ll send you an invoice that you can pay securely online, and then I’ll get your art carefully packed and shipped to you.
Here’s answers to FAQs about buying, shipping, and my refund policy. Feel free to be in touch if you have any other questions!
The work behind the work
Interested in finding out about my creative process and how it relates to narrative therapy, meaning-making, and the stories of these artworks?
Explore the stories within each of the Topophilia artworks and re-create your own inner landscapes of belonging
Drawing on my first career in grief support and my own experiences of grief, the reflection tour invites you to slow down, spend time with the artworks and their stories and poems, and reflect on questions that’ll help you to explore - and re-create - your own experiences of grief, resilience, and belonging.
The Reflection Tour is free, unhurried, and designed to be taken at your own pace. Enjoy!