ARTIST STATEMENT
My recent works on paper explore the evolving relationship between the nature and the urban environment, with a focus on the Midwestern landscape that I call home. Each work reflects my fascination with how human impact shapes the land—and how nature, in turn, reclaims its space. I find inspiration in the shifting colors and textures of Lake Michigan, the slow erosion of the rusting walls of a highway underpass, and the weeds pushing through cracked pavement, undeterred. These moments reveal both the resilience of the natural world and the marks we leave behind. Through layered abstraction, I use color and texture to evoke cycles of decay, renewal, and coexistence.
My paintings trace the quiet drama of land as a living archive—bearing the scars of industrialization while offering glimpses of regeneration. My work is a love letter to the land, but not an uncritical one. It’s about gratitude for green spaces that offer an oasis from urban sprawl, the tension between what we build and what we destroy, and the stories the land carries—of decay, growth, and the hope of renewal.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Katherine Lampert is an artist based in Chicago, IL. She received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Northwestern University. She has exhibited widely, with a recent solo show at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago. Katherine has been a Community Artist in Residence at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, an Artist In Residence at the Cooper Union, and received two fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center. She received a Full University Fellowship and a Teaching Fellowship from the Graduate School at Northwestern University, a City of Chicago Community Arts Assistance Program Grant, and a pARTners of Jackson Hole Grant. Her work has been featured in a number of publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic, and Michigan Avenue Magazine, among others.
© Katherine Lampert