About

Catherine Meier creates drawings, animations, and large-scale animation installations of earth, sky, and horizon – of vast, open, land, space and water. Her projects are large in scope and develop over several years of deep listening in specific locations — this experience forms the core of her artistic process. 

Meier holds a MFA from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2009), and a BFA from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (2005). Recent support for her work includes a 2024-2025 University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment grant, a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant, a 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and 2020 and 2013 McKnight Visual Artist fellowships. Meier’s project Standing Witness, site: Sage Creek was recognized through Creative Capitals’ “On our Radar”. She has held place-oriented residencies in Homer, Alaska, with the Loup TREX wildfire training exchange, Cedar Point Biological Station, Badlands National Park, and Mongolia. Her work has shown in museums, galleries, and film festivals, as well as in the very land that gives rise to her work. 

Meier’s studio practice is based in Grand Marais and Finland, Minnesota. A settler descendent, she grew up on the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills, and for many years, Meier worked as a truck driver hauling cattle from Montana to Texas throughout the Plains. In 2002, she took a summer job on the Gunflint Trail in Northern Minnesota. It turned into a lasting deal. With her family, Meier now makes her home on Lake Superior’s North Shore, the vast, blue horizon in view. 

Catherine Meier

Above: On location at Sage Creek

Selected Awards
  • University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment grant, 2024-2025
             From Grief to Agency: An Environmental Art Project  
  • Creative Individuals Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2024 
  • Public Art Commission, Silver Bay Public Library, Silver Bay, MN, 2022 
  • Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, 2021 
  • McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, 2020 
  • Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2019 
  • “On Our Radar,” Creative Capital Foundation, New York, NY, 2015 
  • McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, 2013 
  • Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Grants: 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017
  • Jacob K. Javits Fellow at The University of Michigan, U.S. Department of Education, 2006-2009 

 

Selected Exhibitions
  • Distillation, Views from the Shore, Tettegouche State Park Visitor Center, 2025 
  • Drawn to The Passing Blue, Bethel University, St. Paul, MN, 2024
  • Indelible Landscape, Constellation Studios, Lincoln, NE, 2023 
  • Hedgerows, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2021 
  • Space: Time and Place, Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, M, 2019 
  • Field Trials, Catherine Meier and Kristina Estell, Free Range Film Festival Barn, Wrenshall, Mn, 2019 
  • Catherine Meier, Ridgewater College Galleries, Wilmar & Hutchinson, MN, 2019 
  • Vast ° Intimate, Macrostie Art Center, Grand Rapids, MN, 2016 
  • Standing Witness, site: Sage Creek, Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, 2015
  • This Big Land: Catherine Meier, Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE, 2015 
  • Standing Witness, site: Sage Creek – Field Installation, Badlands National Park, SD, 2014 
  • It happened here…, Willa Cather Foundation, Red Cloud, NE, 2014 
  • Open Richness, Great Plains Art Museum, Lincoln, NE, 2012

 

Residencies
  • Artist in Residence, Loup TREX (Wildfire fighting training exhchange), Nebraska, 2024  
  • Artist in Residence, Bunnell Arts Center, Homer, Alaska, 2022  
  • Artist in Residence, Cedar Point Biological Station, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Ogallala, NE, 2017 
  • Artist in Residence, National Park Service, Badlands National Park, Interior, SD, 2014
  • BioRegions Expedition, Mongolia,  2008