Katrina Bello
Katrina Bello is a visual artist who works in Montclair, NJ and in the Philippines where she was born and raised. Her work is informed by observations and experiences of natural environments encountered during the course of migration. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded fellowships and residencies in the United States. She has participated in exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museum, NJ; The Visual Arts Center of NJ; El Museo Cultural, NM; MO Space and West Gallery in Metro Manila, Philippines. She has been awarded residencies at Millay Arts, NY; Tides Institute & Museum of Art, ME; Art & History Museums - Maitland, FL; and Brush Creek Foundation For the Arts, WY. She is a 2021 Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow for the October 2021 residency at Millay Arts. Katrina received a BFA from the Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University and a MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Artist Statement
My drawings are about the beauty, complexity, fragility and what is compelling about the natural world. I see nature and our relationship to it as my point of departure in understanding our humanity. What I’m particularly interested in drawing are landscapes of wildernesses, especially the ones that are distant and remote - their vastness and seeming emptiness speak of what is “other” to our human world, our dreams, our fears and what is beyond our control. These places are also fragile and undergoing dramatic change from increased urbanization. When I am in the studio, questions about our place, effect and purpose in the natural world occupy my thoughts. These questions come from the experience of migrating from coastal environments that have undergone dramatic change, and where some parts no longer exist.
These questions are what propel me to choose drawing as the medium to carry what I feel and think about these subjects. I count on my drawing medium to be a focused and tactile way of representing the patterns and forms found in nature. I use detailed line drawing, size and scale as the means of insisting on my subjects. The works are either 5 by 8 feet, or 5 by 8 inches in size. Through drawing, I’m creating spaces that are vast, yet finite and intimate. I want the viewer to get a sense of either being enveloped and surrounded by this space, or the sense that they can hold it in the palm of their hand.
At Tusen Takk
Katrina spent time observing and reflecting on the qualities of the water, photographing it, and making sketches that embodied the sense of the water being infinite, volatile, and in a state that “borders on insanity.” The sketches are part of her ongoing series of drawings called 30,000 Tons- a series of works about water and the genesis of the planet (a study stated that 30,000 tons is approximately the volume of water that falls to Earth annually in the form of cometary particles from space). Her drawings share and express the sense of wonder, beauty, and complexity of large bodies of water, with the hope of inspiring a mixed sense of care, calm, curiosity, and awe for the subjects of the works.
Work created in residence—in response to the water, stones, and sky of Northern Michigan—was on view at Commongrounds in the exhibition Tender Sun.
Bello’s solo exhibition Sky Into Stone will be on view at the Dennos Museum Center from September 27, 2024 to January 5, 2025.
In the studio, Salix, 2021, Charcoal and pastel on paper, 60 x 50”. Image courtesy of the artist
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