Katherine Keltner makes color-saturated abstractions in which scribbled, organic forms push against hard-edged lines — a visual argument between what is imposed and what simply grows. Her sources are the city as she actually finds it: graffiti marks, sidewalk weeds, uninvited presences that persist in the margins of the urban landscape. Working in oil, acrylic, and spray paint alongside charcoal, ink, and found objects, she builds surfaces where residue and emergence are equally at play. Structure and chaos are not resolved in her paintings so much as held in productive tension. Born in Oklahoma City and raised in New York, Keltner earned a BA from Dartmouth College in English and critical theory before beginning graduate architecture studies at Columbia University. She went on to earn an MFA from American University, spending an intermediary semester at Brooklyn College studying with Elizabeth Murray. Alongside Murray, her practice has been shaped by sustained relationships with the art critic and historian Barbara Rose — for whom she worked — and the conceptual artist Martha Rosler. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, including at the Katzen Arts Center at American University Museum, Field Projects, A.I.R. Gallery, Real Art Ways, and Max Protetch Gallery, among others. In 2021, she had her second solo exhibition at Sweet Lorraine Gallery, Brooklyn, where she also curated the exhibition Stuffed in 2017. In 2018, she presented a two-person show at American University Museum with Luc Dubois. She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Chautauqua Institution. In addition to her painting practice, Keltner has published on Elizabeth Murray and Barbara Rose, and is currently completing an oral history and critical biography of Rose in conjunction with Les Archives de la critique d'art. She has taught and given artist talks at Hunter College, Barnard College, Columbia University, and Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and writes occasional reviews for POV Arts. She lives and works in Brooklyn.