ABOUT
Kathryn "Katya" Dennison (b.2002) is a traditional oil painter, drawer, photographer, and lithographer who incorporates classical, academic, Biblical, and Slavic aesthetics, history, and generational legacy into modern introspections of thought, behavior, and visual culture via figurative elements. Beyond a broad academic portfolio, her conceptual pieces explore the rhythmic nature of the corporeal body, spiritual contradictions, and the oftentimes base, borderline animalistic, vices that lie beneath.
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Katya received her Bachelors in Fine Arts (summa cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania (2023), in coordination with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2023). She focused her education into minors in Classical Studies, Art History (with a concentration in 16th-19th Century and Soviet art movements), and Cinema Studies.
Residing in Queens, NYC, Katya is currently studying at Grand Central Atelier.
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CV / EXHIBITIONS / AWARDS
EXHIBITIONS
- Salmagundi Club, "Humans 24: The New York Figurative Exhibition", (2024)
- Salmagundi Club, "Annual Fall Auction" (2024)
- The Almenara Collection, Online Exhibition (2024)
- Willow Vermont Retreat, "Passages: The Future of Contemporary Realism" (2024)
- Salmagundi Club, "Genesis" (2023)
- PAFA Annual Student Exhibition (2023)
- Beekman & Mitchell, "After Pierre Matisse" (2022)
- Lightspace Gallery, "Portraits" Exhibition (Dec. 2021-Jan. 2022) (Remote)
- PAFA Annual Bacchanal Auction (2022)
AWARDS
- Honorable Mention, "Humans 24: The New York Figurative Exhibition" at Salmagundi Club (2024)
- Art Renewal Center Salon Semifinalist (2024)
- The Almenara Collection Art Prize Youth Category Semifinalist (2024)
Scholarship Member at the Salmagundi Club (NYC)
- Maguire Artistic Excellence Scholarship (full-tuition merit scholarship), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2020-23)
- The J. Henry Schiedt Memorial Travel Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2023)
- The Cecilia Beaux Memorial Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2022)
- Franklin C. Watkins Memorial Grant, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2022)
- National Society of Arts & Letters Winston Scholarship Grant (2019)
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PRESS
- Philadelphia Inquirer "The Joy (and Sorrow) of Parenting" (2023)