About

Catherine Meier creates drawings, animations, and large-scale installations of earth, sky, and horizon – of vast, open land and space. 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. 

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. Meier holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In recent years, Meier's work has focused on the Sage Creek area of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, located on Lakota Homelands. In addition to countless miles driven through the Plains, she has spent time on the Mongolian steppe.

Meier’s work has shown in museums, galleries, and film festivals, as well as in the very land that gives rise to her work. Recent support for her work includes a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant and a commission through a University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment grant. In 2021, Meier was awarded a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and a McKnight Visual Artist fellowship in 2020. While in college 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 reach.

 

Catherine Meier

Above: On location at Sage Creek

Selected Awards
  • 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, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program, 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, 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