About Katherine Cox Knapp
Artist Statement
Experience for Experience's Sake
I grew up an isolated child of preoccupied parents in a hilly, tree-lined neighborhood watching the slow death of the steel mill era in Pittsburgh. I was an incredibly visual child, able to sit and be perfectly entertained for long periods in the backyard looking at tree branches, birds, and people walking by. As a result, my work often has a voyeuristic feel, as if the viewer is lingering nearby, full of love and longing, but not really a part of things, creating an exquisite feeling of nostalgia, not for the past, but for what's happening right in front of you.
I start with a loose gestural drawing in charcoal to work out the composition on the canvas. I then bring in color, changing things often until I see what I like. I like to watch the struggle to find the piece play out on the canvas. I feel it adds history, strength, and complexity to the final work.
In the end, what I hope, is to both connect with the viewer and offer the viewer their own private connection with the art.
Bio
Katherine Cox Knapp is a contemporary figurative and abstract painter living and working in Chicago, Il. Her work focuses on vulnerability, beauty, and nostalgia. Harkening back to the 19th Century movement, "Art for Art's Sake," she is interested in the direct aesthetic experience of a piece of art, that moment of interchange between a viewer and an art object being viewed, when each is acting on and influencing the other. She calls this, Experience for Experience's Sake.
She began her education with an undergraduate degree in Russian Literature and Fine Art. This led to working in the nonprofit sector supporting Russian artists and later spending a year hanging out with artists and collectors in Moscow going to openings, theater, and concerts almost every night and translating exhibition catalogues and articles for them during the day. She returned to school for an M.A. in Russian Studies and an M.F.A. in creative writing, after which she worked in Ukraine reorganizing collective farms into private businesses and wrote a novel about Russian artists in Moscow.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous Chicago venues including the Chicago Cultural Center, the Bridgeport Art Center, the Epiphany Center for the Arts, Zhou B Art Center, The Evanston Art Center, and the West Loop Contemporary Fine Art Expo.
Artist's CV
EDUCATION
M.F.A. Creative Writing, George Mason University, 2005.
B.A. Russian Literature and Fine Art, University of Pittsburgh, 1991.
SELECT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Consultant, International Finance Corporation, World Bank, Donetsk, Ukraine 1995-96.
Associate Director: Faberge Arts Foundation, Washington, DC 1994-95.
Interpreter, Translator, Consultant: Kolodzei Arts Foundation, Moscow, Russia 1992-93.
PUBLICATIONS
Hill Community Marketplace, Newspaper, Founder and Editor (2003-2004)
Multiple Book Reviews, The Hill Rag. Washington, DC. (2003-04)
“Christmas Eve At Costya's,” Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art 30 (2): 57-60. (2003)
Cherkashin’s Museum Metropolitan, Translation from Russian, Visual Artist, Valery Cherkashin (Moscow, Russia, 1993).
EXHIBITIONS
West Loop Contemporary Fine Art Expo, Chicago. October, 2025
Evanston Art Center, Chicago. Group Show, April 19-May 25, 2025
Zhou B Art Center, Chicago. Group show, March 21-May 9, 2025
West Loop Contemporary Fine Art Expo, Chicago. February, 2025
Chicago Cultural Center. Group show, Chicago Alliance of Visual Artists. 2024
Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, Members Show, Chicago Alliance of Visual Artists. 2023
Epiphany Center for the Arts, Chicago. Group show, Chicago Alliance of Visual Artists. 2022
Edgewater Arts Festival, Chicago. 2021
Aartwerk Studio, Chicago. Group show. 2019