Artist Focus: Katriel Srebnik

Always interested in the arts, Katriel Srebnik considered music or writing as potential careers while growing up. Instead, she earned a business degree in college and worked in Manhattan, where she began visiting art museums, drawn to their collections of Greek and Roman sculpture, and Renaissance through 19th-century Masters. She also took an interest in art dealers, particularly those that handled works by American painters such as William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Frank Weston Benson, Willard Metcalf and Robert Henri.

Winter View from My Studio in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, oil on linen, 12 x 16"

“The easy access to exceptional art inspired me to create a study program of anatomy, drawing and painting, hiring models and painting on the street,” she says. “My goal is to distill an image or experience into its essence and express this vision in the most eloquent, painterly terms—elevating it into the realm of the poetic.”

A Welcome Repose, oil on linen, 12 x 16"

After living in New York, Srebnik moved to France to paint European scenes and spend more time in museums. While it was a great opportunity, she realized she had to return to the United States to build a career as a fine artist. She made one more artistic detour by becoming a principle dancer for a ballet company and teaching dance, which introduced dancers to her figurative subjects.

“A year ago, I moved to rural Pennsylvania to start a new chapter in my art career,” shares Srebnik. “While surrounded by beautiful landscapes, historic barns, farmhouses, cattle, horses, deer and other fauna, I am still likely to draw inspiration from great works of art, music, literature or dance.”