About Katherine Keltner

Katherine Keltner’s works incorporate various materials - oil, acrylic, and spray paints; charcoal; ink; and found objects – to examine ideas of residue and emergence, and the relationship between what is imposed and what naturally occurs. Her process combines a deliberate investigation of material properties with intuitive responses to their emergent forms. By juxtaposing found and organic shapes with hard-edged lines as systems of control, she establishes a visual dialogue between chaos and structure.

Keltner was born in Oklahoma City and raised in New York City. She earned a BA from Dartmouth College, majoring in English and critical theory, minoring in studio art and art history, then continued to Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and later to American University, where she earned an MFA, spending one intermediary semester at Brooklyn College to study with Elizabeth Murray. Her works have been exhibited in the US and Europe, including at The Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum of Art, Field Projects, and A.I.R. Gallery. Awards include fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale Foundation, and the Chautauqua Institution.

In addition to Murray, Keltner has found strong and diverse mentors, including the art critic and historian Barbara Rose and the conceptual artist Martha Rosler. She is active in the art world: she was an early member of the collective tART, has taught and lectured at multiple institutions, and writes occasional reviews for POV Arts. She is working on a study of Rose’s critical writings in conjunction with Les Archives de la critique d’art.

I make color-saturated abstractions infused with hints of scribbled, organic forms inspired by the graphic lines and vivid hues of graffiti and by the urban plant life that pushes through cracks in the sidewalks — uninvited marks and untended growths etched into the city’s landscape, asserting their presence through quiet persistence and vitality, representing – and celebrating – presences that interrupt dominance and introduce counterweight.

My painting process mirrors ideas of residue and emergence. I explore material properties, responding to the forms that surface, allowing accidental effects to coexist with purposeful structure. Each painting unfolds through defined forms and fluid washes, blurring distinctions between sequence and precedence. Traces of additions and erasures remain visible as trains of thought, like sprayed marks or neglected weeds that linger in our visual experience of the city. Through this interplay of chaos and control, and shifting color intensities, the works offer both moments of exhilaration and spaces of tranquility.

In other works, small sculptural pieces and palette strips, I document the fragments and decisions integral to the final form, echoing the residues of marks within the paintings. The sculptures, string wrapped around blue tape, paper stencils, and other bits of studio detritus, are labeled with the day’s date, diaristically recording the act of making. The canvas strips, collaged with paint skins, chronicle my range of color choices. Together, these pieces expose the painting process, revealing both the steps taken and the excesses discarded along the path to completion. By disclosing this process and its remnants, I highlight the importance of what remains, those essential yet too often unseen components that form the building blocks for more “finished” works.

Curriculum Vitae

Katherine Keltner

Statement