about
Katerina Lanfranco makes paintings, drawings, cutouts, mixed media sculptures, and installations.
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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:
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- 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.
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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.
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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.​
Katerina Lanfranco is a Brooklyn-based artist known for her dynamic paintings, drawings, mixed media works, and sculptures. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, she spent her early childhood in Berlin, Germany, and her teenage years in Bangalore, India. She holds a BA in Art and Visual Theory & Museum Studies from UC Santa Cruz and earned her MFA in Studio Art (Painting) from Hunter College, City University of New York.
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Lanfranco’s work is included 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. She has received numerous awards and residencies, including the Japan-US Creative Exchange Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Residency, Pollock-Krasner Fellowship at the Byrdcliffe Artist Residency, and the Tony Smith Award from Hunter College. Additional honors include the William Graft Memorial Fund Travel Grant to study High Baroque Italian painting and an exchange scholarship to study at UdK in Berlin, Germany.
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Her professional experience extends beyond the studio. Lanfranco founded Rhombus Space in 2013 and served as Chief Curator at Trestle Gallery from 2015 to 2018. She has been represented by Nancy Hoffman Gallery since 2006. Her work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally in Canada, Germany, Italy, and Japan, with notable solo shows including Waterstone: La goccia scava la pietra at the American Italian Heritage Museum, Nature Poems at Sweet Lorraine Gallery, Mystic Geometry at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Efflorescence at the SCPS Gallery at Pratt Manhattan, Talk to the Moon at Day & Night Projects in Atlanta, Georgia, and Shadow Light at HOUSEGallery in Philadelphia.
Lanfranco’s work has been featured in publications such as ARTnews, ARTinfo, and The New York Times. Alongside her studio practice, she has written about contemporary art for ArtBlog and POVarts.com and has been a guest artist and critic at institutions across the U.S
