Katie Murken (b. 1980, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a Bay Area artist whose practice spans sculpture, collage, installation and book arts. Working with discarded, abject materials that feel hopeless, Murken’s process is one of transformation, revealing the beauty inherent in the act of giving care. In her hands, cast-off materials become metaphors for the invisibility and devaluation of women’s voices, and a point of departure for reclaiming material culture as a site for dissent. Murken holds an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BFA with Honors from The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. Her work has been exhibited at Track 16 Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Root Division (San Francisco, CA), Woolff Gallery (London, UK), The Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA), Grounds for Sculpture (Hamilton, NJ) The Soap Factory (Minneapolis, MN), and The Contemporary Arts Center of Las Vegas, NV. Murken is a 2024 SECA Art Award nominee, presented by SFMOMA. She is the recipient of an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts and a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellowship. Murken’s work is included in the collections of The Pennsylvania Convention Center, The William Paterson University, and the J. Edgar Louise S. Monroe Library at Loyola University.