Artist: Katerina Lanfranco
Artist Statement
I explore the intersections of nature, science, and fantasy through my art practice. I research, collect, reorganize, and transform images and objects from the natural world and everyday life to create fantastical allegorical paintings and sculptures. My work seeks to explore the apparent duality of culture and nature. I make art as a way to ask questions about the world that I live in: – How do I make the invisible visible? – At what point does fantasy become a reality? – How do we connect with nature’s forms, cycles, and rhythms? In my exhibitions, I curate the experience for the viewer, considering how they navigate the space and encounter the art. By incorporating installation elements, shifts in scale, and diverse materials, I aim to engage the senses and evoke curiosity and engagement. Viewing nature through a cultural lens, I draw inspiration from botanical illustrations, floral patterns, curio cabinets, scientific notes, dioramas, and mandalas. My work pays homage to the poetic traditions of Symbolist and Visionary Art, the mystical landscapes of Romanticism, the bold colors of Fauvism, and the dramatic compositions of the High Baroque. Like the Hudson River School painters, I seek a transcendental connection to nature. Landscapes, sacred geometry, natural history, biological structures, and genetic engineering are recurring themes in my work. I am interested in how humans create meaning in relation to the natural world. My current work explores geometry and natural patterns combined with landscape painting that explores healing, memory, and mysticism. Recurring themes in my work include landscapes, sacred geometry, natural history, biological structures, and scientific advancements, such as genetic engineering. My current body of work combines landscape painting with themes of healing, memory, and mysticism by exploring geometry, patterns, and symbolism in nature. Ultimately, I am interested in how humans create meaning through our relationship with the natural world.
Artist Biography
I live in Brooklyn, New York, and maintain an art studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I teach studio art at Hunter College, City University of New York, and Parsons, The New School. I earned my BA in Art and Visual Theory and Museum Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and my MFA in Studio Art in Painting from Hunter College, CUNY. My work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Kupferstichkabinett Museum of Prints and Drawings in Berlin, and the Corning Museum of Glass. I am the recipient of awards and residencies including the Japan-US Creative Exchange Fellowship Artist-in-Residence Award; DNA Artist Residency; Openings’ Lake George Residency; Sugar Shack Artist-in-Residence; Vermont Studio Center; Pollock Krasner Fellowship at the Byrdcliffe Artist Residency; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Artist in Residence with Flux Factory; Tony Smith Award from Hunter College; Hunter College Exchange Scholarship to study at UdK Berlin, Germany; the William Graft Memorial Fund Travel Grant to research High Baroque Italian painting; and recently the Cecile Insdorf Adjunct Faculty Advancement Fund award to research Charles Burchfield’s life and work. I founded Rhombus Space in 2013 and was Chief Curator at Trestle Gallery from 2015 to 2018. My work has been represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery since 2006. My work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and internationally in Toronto, Canada; Berlin, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Kyoto, Japan.