Katerina Lanfranco was born in 1978. She received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, City University of New York and a B.A. in Art as well as a B.A. in Visual Theory and Museum Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She also studied at Cabrillo College, Aptos, California.

Lanfranco has always been interested in nature and the world in which we live and joins her interest in science and the natural world with myth. Her paintings include references to real as well as invented aspects of nature. The dialectic between what is “real” and what is “fictional” is at the heart of all the artist’s work

In her “Black Botanicals” created with an X-acto knife Lanfranco creates whimsical cutouts of imaginary plant life. Her landscapes of undulating hills, cloud-like shapes and flowing streams are painted in and soft pinks, mauves, greens and golds, inhabited by fantastical creatures of nature.

The artist’s recent solo exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery was an installation by the artist entitled “Ursis Horribilis,” comprising two major oil paintings and a sculptural environment. “Ursus Horribilis is the sculptural Grizzly Bear, a legend of the wilder-ness and the most ferocious animal in North America.

On either side of the bear are two paintings, mirroring each other composi-tionally and addressing the issue of Creationism and Evolutionism.