Katharen Wiese

she/her
Katharen Wiese Image
Practitioner in Residence
Community Engaged Teaching Fellow

Art and Design Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Education

BFA (printmaking), University of Nebraska Lincoln
MFA (painting and printmaking), Yale University

About Katharen

Katharen Wiese is a multidisciplinary artist from Lincoln, NE, residing in New Haven, Connecticut. Wiese joined the Art and Design department in 2024 as the first Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow in partnership with the Yale School of Art.

She holds a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (2018) and an MFA from Yale University (2024). Before entering graduate school, Wiese was a community arts organizer in the Everett and Near South Neighborhoods of Lincoln, Nebraska where she coordinated public art projects, creative-placemaking workshops and developed a community art residency. Wiese’s artistic background spans, figurative painting, printmaking, murals, and collage. Her work engages the actualities of commodity culture and its relationship to racial and environmental harm through archival research and reclaimed materials.

Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Yale Peabody Natural History Museum (2024), the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum (2023), Kiechel Fine Art (2022), the Museum of Nebraska Art (2021), Charlotte Street Foundation (2020), and the Union for Contemporary Art (2020) among others.

Solo Exhibitions

2022

i made the cornrows: portraits of Black Nebraskans, Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, NE

in relief, LUX Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE

Group Exhibitions

2024

  • Surface Trouble, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, New York
  • And sew it seams, Toshkova Fine Art Advisory, Durham, NC
  • a place that is not here, Afro American Cultural Center at Yale
  • and the forms which linger . . . , Yale Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT

2023

  • Second Thoughts, Yale Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT
  • Beautiful Black, Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum, Clarinda, IA
  • Cousins, Yale African American Student Center, New Haven, CT

2022

  • Blanket Statement: First-Year MFA show, New Haven, CT
  • Beautiful Black, Assemblage, Lincoln, NE

2021

  • Because of This, Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO
  • Permanent exhibit at the Nebraska History Museum, Lincoln, NE
  • Art in Embassies, US Department of State, Kampala, Uganda

2020

  • U + E: Kwame Dawes and Kat Wiese, Union for Contemporary Art, Omaha
  • NOW, Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, NE
  • 9 Nebraskans, Constellation Studios and LUX Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE
  • i miss you and i’m angry, Ghost Art Project, Omaha, NE
  • Black Love, Black Futures, South of Downtown Art Hub, Lincoln, NE

Additional Awards Residencies, Fellowships, Projects, and Commissions

Awards

2023: Mayor's Art Award for Artistic Achievement, Lincoln, NE

2022: Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant

2022: Nebraska Artist Fellowship, Nebraska Arts Council

2021: Artists Choice, Nebraska Biennial, Gallery 1516, Omaha, NE

2019: Thomas P. Coleman Memorial Award/Scholarship in Printmaking for 18’-19’

2018: Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, UNL Award Recipient

2014-2028: Kimmel Harding Scholarship, University of Nebraska Lincoln

Residencies and Fellowships

2024: University of New Haven Teaching Fellow, West Haven, CT

2024: Yale Peabody Summer Art Fellowship, New Haven, CT

2023: Royal Drawing School, Dumfries House Residency, Scotland

2021: Cedar Point Biological Station, Ogallala, NE, (June '21)

2021: BIPOC Residency at the Burkholder Project, Lincoln, NE

Selected Public Projects

Slow Your Roll street mural, organized by South of Downtown Community

Development Organization and the neighborhood, 11th and B St, Lincoln Chesnutt’s Shadow, Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO

Black History Black Futures coloring book, organized by South of Downtown Community Development Organization

9 Nebraskans murals, Lux Center for the Arts and Constellations Studios, Lincoln

Commissions

2021 F.U.B.U, mural with Patreon, Omaha, NE

The Charles Chestnutt Archive, University of Nebraska Lincoln and the New School for Design

News and In the Media

In the Media

Katharen Wiese, a community-engaged teaching fellow at the University of New Haven, discusses her art and how her identity shapes her career.