About

Katya Frei (born 1994 in Belarus) grew up in Polesia, a region in southeastern Belarus. Forests, meandering rivers and marshlands not only shape the landscape, but also Frei's artistic vision: the unspoiled nature of this wild landscape and its inherent mysticism are important sources of her visual language.

Intercultural influences are also reflected in Frei's work: the artist lived between Europe and the Middle East for ten years. This period brought her particularly close to Asian culture. In 2016, she was nominated for the Young Artist Award in the United Arab Emirates.

Frei studied at the Minsk State Architecture and Construction College (Мінскі Дзяржаўны Архітэктурна-будаўнічы Каледж) and graphic design and printmaking at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. During this time, she participated in numerous international exhibitions, including representing the Angewandte at Tokyo University of the Arts.

In Backwater, Frei's diploma project from 2023, the artist addressed questions of origin, cultural influences and the effects of current events in Belarus and its neighboring countries. It is a layered exploration of childhood memories and motifs from Belarusian landscapes.

In 2023, Katya Frei moved to Klagenfurt, where she lives and works. Here, too, her research-based artistic practice is in close dialogue with her surroundings; in 2024, Frei was awarded the Wietersdorfer Prize for Fine Arts in Carinthia for a project dealing with plant species native to Carinthia and threatened with extinction.

Nature as a central source of inspiration and motif is a distinctive feature of Frei's works. Her artistic perception oscillates between the obvious and the hidden: the admiration of external beauty and aesthetics and the search for hidden details in the familiar.

Frei processes this technically in lithographs, woodcuts, etchings and drawings. Plants and insects represent living organisms and also serve as metaphors for change, fragility and the cyclical rhythm of becoming and passing away.