vita

Marie-Kathrin Saalfrank was born in 1987 in Berlin and grew up in Bayreuth. In 2007, she began her studies in the class for Fine Arts and Art Education at the Academy of Fine Arts (AdBK) in Nuremberg. During her studies, Marie specialized in artistic photomontages and digital painting, combining narrative motifs with atmospheric scenes and subtle disturbances. In 2008, she was awarded the second place in the Academy Prize at the annual exhibition for her work.

In 2009, Marie received project funding for her surreal underwater self-portraits through the Canon Profifoto Förderpreis. These works were presented at Photokina in Cologne in 2010. She participated in various actions and exhibitions with the artist group „verblonshen,“ including events during the Blaue Nacht.

After completing her studies in 2013, she underwent preparatory service for teaching art at the high school level from 2013 to 2015, which she completed with the second state examination. Since 2017, Marie-Kathrin Saalfrank has been working as a teacher for art, design and media at the Lothar-von-Faber School in Nuremberg.

In her artistic practice, in addition to traditional and digital techniques, she has been working with artificial intelligence, particularly text-to-image generators, as an artistic tool since 2022.

For several years, the artist has been suffering from the severe neuro-immune disease ME/CFS, which increasingly weakens her body and significantly affects her artistic work.

Awards

2012   Art Prize of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart  2. Place
2012   Art Sponsorship Award of the City of Lauf- Audience Award
2009   Canon Profifoto support prize  
2008   Academy Prize AdBK Nürnberg

Exhibitions

Since 2008, Marie-Kathrin Saalfrank has presented her works in various exhibitions throughout Bavaria, espacially in Nuremberg, Bayreuth, and Aschaffenburg.