Drawing and painting portraits has always been at the core of my artwork. In my portraits I strive to express the passion and personality of my subjects and capture an inner aspect of who they are. My portraits evolve like improvisational dance. I sculpt in color and form, continuously transforming and remolding my image, like working with wet malleable clay. I am influenced and inspired by great Impressionist and Fauvist painters such as Monet and Matisse.

Equally obsessed with the built environment and the human figure, my figurative paintings are based on sketches and photographic studies and heavily influenced by architecture.

Working simultaneously on large canvases and experimenting on small boards, allows me to investigate a topic for months.  

In the end a body of work encompasses many pieces, while exploring a single subject or place.

It is not movement or narrative that interests me. Rather than illustrating a momentary idea I want to emphasize the essence of a time and place one can fit into.

Originally from Germany with a background in architecture and art, Katja Leibenath has been painting in San Francisco since 2006.

Her work is part of several private collections nationwide and has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta, in addition to San Francisco.

Painting trees is my creative connection to ancient wisdom, my expression of grounded exuberance, my meditation. While the work is not religious, I am inspired and challenged by the spirituality of nature and the nature of spirituality. The exclusive use of trees for this exploration provides an archetypal structure, and frees my imagination to focus on the challenge of translating this ancient wisdom into graphic form.

While I have always had a profound respect and love of trees, using them as an artistic theme in painting came into focus on Paletine Hill in Rome. Even though I have been painting my whole life, it

"What the eye beholds
the tongue need not explain."

Working in watercolor, oil and dry media I paint primarily animated still lifes and landscapes.  Bones, household objects and strait jackets are common subjects.  Travels in New Mexico and along the Pacific coast influence my land and seascapes.

My work has been called "intelligent", "twisted domestic", and "structural still life".

I view my work as a cultural intervention that utilizes formal strategies as a means of engaging a range of very personal historical and social issues.