Artist Katja Seib’s surreal portraits blur reality, dreams and everyday life
The US-based German painter places her family and friends in allegorical scenes informed by her own life and classic European art school training
Growing up in Düsseldorf, Katja Seib was immersed in art from a young age. Her mother would regularly take her to visit student shows at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the academy of fine arts, one of Europe’s most important art institutions. “I feel like I had no choice but to become an artist,” she says with a laugh. “I was so influenced by everything from the city – even the streets here are named after artists like [German theorist and sculptor] Joseph Beuys, and the local baker knows who he is.”
It was only natural that Seib applied to the Kunstakademie, where she was accepted after secondary school. She instinctively began painting and became interested in portraiture. Over time, she experimented with different materials. “I’m a European painter. I had a classic painter’s education, but then started to question, ‘What else can I use [aside from canvas]? What happens if I just paint on fabric, or raw hessian?’” she says. When she moved to Los Angeles in 2018, her first studio was in the fabric district. On many mornings, on the way to her studio, she would pick up different materials, stretch them on canvas bars and explore the effects.
Today, much of Seib’s work is autobiographical. She often paints large-scale works depicting herself, her family members and friends with strong surrealist undertones. “One of the main topics in my work is the thin line between reality and dreams, between the subconscious and conscious, which I think is very relatable to almost every human being,” she explains. “The most fascinating things happen when we dream.” She deliberately disorientates the viewer, making them question what is real.
Her process often starts with portraits capturing moments of everyday life; then, as she paints, the works slowly morph into dreamlike scenarios suffused with strange colours. Many of her works involve recursive motifs: mirrored images, doubled faces and scenes that read like paintings within paintings.
Recently, the artist has started painting using underglaze on ceramics. “It’s frustrating but also fun because you don’t know what will come out [of the kiln],” she says. “It’s very challenging to work with but the more challenging it is, the more I like to pursue it.”