Portrait of Katja Liebmann

ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART, LONDON

KUNSTHOCHSCHULE BERLIN

ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, NUREMBERG

* 1965 Halle an der Saale,
based in Berlin and Oldenburg

Katja Liebmann is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg.

Liebmanns work draws on memory and archival photographic material to explore the mutable nature of time and recollection. Her ”etchings of time” reflect her belief that memory is fluid and ever-changing. The works often present fleeting glimpses of cityscapes and landscapes, imbued with a strong sense of presence – of the observer both witnessing and remembering.

“During our journeys through life, to our alleged goal, it is easy to become detached from our immediate environment. It becomes hard to see anything beyond what we have already learned to see and most of what we see, when we see, is quick and remote; we are lost in thought. I try to capture these traces of moments, of life happening around us, frozen in one image.” — KL

Katja Liebmann was shortlisted for the 1998 Citibank Photography Prize (now Deutsche Börse Photography Prize) and was awarded the DAAD scholarship in 1995. In 2001 she received a Scholarship from the Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenberg, Sweden. The following year she exhibited at the Goethe-Institut in London.

The work is in the permanent Collection of the Royal College of Art, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Charles Saatchi Collection, London; the LzO Art Collection, (Landessparkasse zu Oldenburg); the Bishkek Art Centre, Kyrgyzstan; the Omsk Museum of Visual Arts, among others.

Most recent acquisitions by the Art Collection of the German Bundestag, Berlin and the Collection of the Oldenburg State Museum.
Her work has been featured in Black + White Photography, Photomonitor and Artdoc magazine.

Katja Liebmann is lecturing in printmaking and early photographic processes at Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg since 2003.
More appointements include Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, the London College of Communication, Camberwell College of Art, London, the Kent Institute of Art & Design, Kent and Haccetepe University, Ankara.


about the artist