Artist Bio
Erika Knerr is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculptural installations, printmaking, murals, performance, and graphic design. Her artistic research explores emotion and its relationship to the human body and the nonhuman environment, drawing on personal yet universal experiences of fertility, grief, longing, and transformation. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and based in Florence, Massachusetts, she creates work that bridges interior emotional states with material form.
In 2026, Knerr will attend a residency at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy. She was a 2024 fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). Knerr was a member of Zea Mays Printmaking Studio in Northampton, MA (2012–2022), and her installation Gemstones and Chakra Tools was permanently installed at 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley, California, in 2017 through Fung Collaboratives. Her Sun Portraits were shown at Prak-Sis Gallery in Chicago (2016) and she performed in the SWITCH intermedia art series for public access TV in Holyoke, MA (2009–2016). Her work has been exhibited in solo, two-person, and group shows and festivals internationally.
Earlier in her career, she was a principal artist with Lance Fung Gallery in New York (1998–2003). She was a member of the International Artists Museum in Łódź, Poland participating in Site-ations International in Cardiff, Wales (1994), Construction in Process in Israel (1995) and Cambio Constante, Zaragoza, Spain (2004). She served as Art Director and on the editorial board of New Observations magazine for over a decade in the 90s and early 2000s. Knerr was also a designer at Fortune magazine (2000–2006). She attended the SVA Abroad Masters Workshop in Design History, Theory, and Practice in Rome and Venice (2011), and earned her BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Erika Knerr
Education
- 2011 Masters Workshop: Design History, Theory and Practice in Rome and Venice, SVA Abroad
- 1988 School of Visual Arts, MFA
- 1985 Tyler School of Art, Temple University, BFA
- 1983 Temple Abroad, Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy
Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
- 2026 “Understory.” Art Kiosk, Redwood City, CA. Curated by Fung Collaboratives
- 2017 “Gemstones and Chakra Tools.” 1440 Multiversity, Scotts Valley, CA. Curated by Lance Fung (Permanent installation)
- 2016 Erika Knerr and Min Ju Kim. Prak-sis Gallery, Chicago, IL
Erika Knerr, “Monoprints.” Loo Gallery, Zea Mays Printmaking, Northampton, MA - 2003 Erika Knerr, “The Mourning After.” Lance Fung Gallery, New York, NY
- 2001 Erika Knerr, “The Biological Clock & the Blue Paintings.” Old Church Cultural Center, Demarest, NJ
- 2000 Erika Knerr, “Marking Time.” Lance Fung Gallery, New York, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions & Performance
- 2024 Erika Knerr “New Works,” Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA. Fellow in Residence
- 2021 Doors Open Holyoke, Baustein Building, Holyoke, MA
- 2018 Santa Fe Art Fair, Santa Fe, NM
- 2017 Abstract Extractions, Northeastern University Gallery, Boston, MA. Curated by Bruce Ployer. Prints
- 2016 Art Busan, BEXCO Exhibition Center II, Busan, South Korea
The Tower of Babel, a traveling exhibition. Schema Projects, Brooklyn, NY
Altered Books: A Book Art Show, curated by John Landino, MAP, Mill Arts Project, Easthampton MA - 2014 Line Art a La Carte, a Participitory Social Art. A collaboration between Artist Organized Art and Eastworks, Easthampton, MA
- 2013 REACH: A Multi-city Exhibition of Contempory Practioners. Installation by Erika Knerr, City Hall Annex, Diamonte Cell, 2013. An installation through the diamond shaped window of a holding cell in Holyoke City Hall Annex
- 2012 ECA Gallery. Easthampton MA. performance/process, with Maggie Nowinski. (august)
- 2011 Switch TV, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. Filmed in Holyoke MA, 11 Episodes, Ongoing.
Book = Object. Paper City Studios, Fall Exhibition. Holyoke, MA - 2010 Live Action New York: Scandinavian and NorthAmerican Performance Art. Pick Up Sticks, An Intermedia
performance at the Scandinavia House, New York. Curated by Jonas Stampe.
Pick Up Sticks, An Intermedia performance at Emily Harvey Foundation, New York. Performed by Jessica Higgins, Mary Averill and Erika Knerr. With Video by Denis Luzuriaga. Original Composition by Joshua Selman and Matt Waugh - 2009 Wonderland, curated by Lance Fung, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Tenderloin District, San Francisco
- 2008 CamouFLASHed Mediations, MEDIATIONS Biennale in Poznan, Poland.
Camouflash - Disappearing in Art. Dresden, Germany. Organized by group UNOACTU, with the Patio Art Centre Lodz - 2007 Camouflash, International Artists Meeting. Curated by Mariusz Soltysik. Patio Art Center, Academy of Humanities and Economics, Lodz, Poland
- 2004 Cambio Constante V. Arte en Orbita. Curated by Paco Simon. Zaragoza Spain
- 2001 Smell of Fear, group show curated by Koan Jeff Baysa at Lance Fung Gallery, New York, NY
- 2000 Mis-Understanding. Begane Grond, Utrecht, Netherlands. Curated by Charlie Citron. Artist-in Residence, Workshop & Exhibition
Bibliography
New Observations magazine, Publisher. “Out of The Box,” #129, “Invisible Medicine,” Guest editor, Joshua Selman, 2015, p. 34. Creative Capital On Our Radar in the Emerging Fields category – Projects to watch. 2012. “Block Party,” An Event Score published in collaboration with Jessica Higgins and Joshua Selman, for the Wonderland Exhibition, San Francisco CA, 2009. Sklodowska, Marta, “Sztuka, Occurring and Disappearing,” Lodz Gazata. Kultura, Poland. October 15, 2007. (photo). Aguerri, Garza, “Un laboratorio de arte independiente,” el Periódico, Spain, May 22, 2004. (photo). Carvalho, Denise, “Mis-Understanding @ Begane Grond,” Flash Art, November/December 2000. Johnson, Ken, “Marking Time,” The New York Times, Friday, July 7, 2000.
Resume
Education
Masters Workshop: Design History, Theory and Practice in Rome and Venice, SVA Abroad
School of Visual Arts, NYC, MFA.
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, BFA
Temple Rome Abroad
Conestoga Valley HS, Lancaster, PA
