Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Catherine Forster

Artist :: Filmmaker :: Independent Curator :: Writer

Catherine Forster is an artist, filmmaker, independent curator, and writer based in the Chicago area. She received an M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been shown at the Notebaert Museum (Chicago), Carnegie Art Museum, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Brownsville Museum of fine Art, Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius, Lithuania), Wesleyan University, San Diego Art Institute, Orange County Contemporary Art Center, and the Hyde Park Art Center Chicago, just to to name a few. Her films have been screened at multiple festivals including Sao Paul International Short Film Festival, Krakow International Short Film Festival, Currents Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Magmart Film Festival Casoria International Contemporary Art Museum (Italy), the Other Venice Film Festival (CA), Simultan Media Arts Festival (Romania), Directors Lounge (Berlin). Forster is also the founder and director of LiveBox, a roving gallery focused on new-media art.

Forster’s trajectory as an artist began with careers in microbiology and business, each experience presented a pathway to her current practice. As a microbiologist, her preferred medium was a microscope; today it is a camera, a paintbrush, and a pen. Forster’s fascination with the world beneath the microscope transformed to the extraordinary arena played out beyond the lens. She is forever fascinated by the capacity of the “third eye” to capture what is missed or denied. Today Forster is most challenged by the relationship between identity and mass media. Her work covers themes of cultural constructs of the feminine, gender non-conformity, and our interactions with nature as a mediated resource.