ABOUT
Katrina Simonsen is an artist, illustrator, and teacher currently living in Philadelphia, PA. She grew up in a small town near Albany, NY where she spent most of her free time learning about animals, talking to strangers, and reading books in the restricted section.
She believes deeply in the power of storytelling and the role that memory, dreams, and connections with others play in the stories we tell. To create her images, she works with materials ranging from plaster and wire sculpture to all kinds of traditional print media, including graphite, oil paint, ink, cut paper, and intaglio.
She graduated summa cum laude from the dual degree program between the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. During this time, she took classes in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, history, oceanography, astronomy, and existential despair.
Katrina teaches both academic and community arts classes. She has taught at Fleisher Art Memorial, the Arts League of University City, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Workshop School.
Katrina is currently available for part-time work and freelance. Please reach her at kmsimonsen@gmail.com!
Follow her on Instagram @km.simonsen.art for updates and sundry. ❃
ARTIST STATEMENT
Much of my inspiration comes from dreams, nightmares, and spiritual or metaphysical experiences. They are often my own, but I love to hear about others’ experiences, too. The additional layers of significance that the human mind ascribes to seemingly arbitrary happenings is as vital to our humanness as our tangible experiences in the physical world. To create work that is nestled within a true and universal environment while still being unambiguously personal is to create something both relatable and alien; I strive to make my work discomforting, yet familiar.
I see every subject as interconnected to all others in my work. To me, everything in the world is a puzzle piece that can be better understood if fitted into context. This is reflected in the way that I work and the materials I use. I tend to cycle between projects, developing each one for a period of time before moving on, and rotating between several different pieces for multiple rounds before completing them all around the same time. Printmaking processes lend themselves well to this method of working—I can work out several visual ideas simultaneously, some in traditional materials like woodblocks or intaglio plates, and others in experimental media. My work is often narrative. A number of elements influence one another to tell a story in a single frame, or through a series of images.
EXHIBITIONS
2024 - Faculty Art Show, The Arts League, Philadelphia PA
2024 - West Craft Fest, The Woodlands, Philadelphia PA
2022, 2023 - Palumbo Art & Craft Festival, Philadelphia PA
2022 - Cerulean Arts' 10th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Philadelphia PA
2022 - University City Arts League, "Building Futures Gala," Philadelphia PA
2021 - Perch Magazine, Yale Creative Arts Journal, Publication
2019 - Rittenhouse Fine Arts Festival, Philadelphia PA
2019 - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, "118th Annual Student Exhibition," Philadelphia PA
2018 - Rittenhouse Fine Arts Festival, Philadelphia PA
2018 - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, "117th Annual Student Exhibition," Philadelphia PA
2018 - Fox Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, "Art In Translation," Philadelphia PA
2017 - Legend Galleries, "Rogue Rogue," Philadelphia PA
2016 - Gallery 128, "LINKED," Philadelphia PA
2016 - Rumsey Exhibition, Buffalo NY
AWARDS
2024 - Resident Artist at Soaring Gardens
2022 - Illuminate the Arts Grant
2019 - Louis and Estelle Pearson Memorial Prize for Landscape with Figures
2019 - Venture Fund Grant
2018 - Susan Carlen Brown Memorial Prize for Aqueous Media on Paper, honorable mention
2016 - Merit Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
2015 - Recipient of Alan E. Cober Memorial Drawing Award
