Kathrin Planke

Born on 27 August 1991 in Langenhagen, art has been with me my whole life.

Even as a child, drawing was more than a pastime. In kindergarten I helped other children with crafts; in primary school I "dealt" my drawings in the playground. My world back then was anime and cartoons — and at the same time something else pulled me in: the old sacred arts and the statues in churches I visited with my parents in Germany and Poland.

While others listened to the sermon, I got lost in the images, the figures, the ornaments and the light. The sermon became secondary and I started asking questions.

After my apprenticeship I studied media design with a focus on animation and graduated with a 1.8. In that time I devoted myself to digital art and worked for international companies.

At the same time I knew I was also using it as a kind of avoidance strategy. Heavy blows of fate had triggered a severe anxiety disorder, and digital art gave me a way to express myself despite my fear, which still has a major impact on my life today.

In 2023 I decided to make traditional art again.

It was not an easy return to the canvas. It was a confrontation with myself that I had long dismissed as "not so important". But it was important!

I started working in traditional art again — with my hands, with paint, with getting "dirty". And suddenly it felt as if I had rediscovered something that had always belonged to me.

Since then I have felt uplifted like I had not in a long time. At least in art.

Why women?

I am often asked why I mostly paint women.

Men are wonderful creatures, beautiful — each in their own way. But women fascinate me in a very particular way.

I love women.

They only need to be there and can fill a whole room with their aura. They can be loving or cold, distant or full of emotion, strong or vulnerable. Sometimes their faces tell a story, sometimes they reveal nothing at all.

And yet — or perhaps precisely because of that — they are beautiful in their being.

I am fascinated by this complexity. The stories that can lie behind a glance, a posture or a face. The contrasts that are allowed to exist at the same time.

In my pictures I try to capture exactly these moments — not only beauty, but personality, mood and what lies between the visible things.

All these influences — my childhood, anime and cartoons, sacred art, statues and light, my experience with digital art and finally my return to traditional painting — flow into my work today.

My art is therefore also a piece of my own story.