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Painter/illustrator Katherine Guillen’s interest in, and concern for, the environment is at the heart of her creative process. “I’ve always been very sensitive to my environment,” she says. “Some­times when I’m out driving I look over the land and think, ‘Why didn’t I study agriculture instead of art?’” Employing printmaking and a variety of painting techniques, Guillen creates unflinching, subtly humorous images that pack a punch. “Katherine’s work has such a strong emotional pull,” says Mark Todd, who was one of her professors at Art Center Col­lege of Design. “Her soft-spoken narratives bring the viewer in, searching for answers. Slivers are given, awarded like small gems, doled out slowly, leaving the viewer always wanting more.” Guillen once heard her work described as “anxious landscapes,” and found herself agreeing. “That’s pretty accurate,” she explains. “Lately there have been a lot of landforms in my pieces, if not outright landscapes, though I would describe them as symbolic rather than picturesque.”

Interviewed recently for The Huffington Post’s “First Person Artist” column, Guillen told blogger Kimberly Brooks, “The intuitiveness and mystery that comes from thoughts that lie on the other side of my consciousness seem to present themselves only when they have long, silent periods of cajoling and something to hold onto. That moment when the idea somehow jumps the wall is exactly the reason I make art.” Peace and quiet are essential to Guillen’s process.

Her work has been in gallery shows at Giant Robot in San Francisco, L.A. and New York; Junc in Silverlake and Abacott in Chinatown (both in L.A.); Aidan Savoy in New York; Uppercase in Canada; and Guillen has a 2008 show scheduled with Tinlark (L.A.). Her commercial illustration appeared recently in Flaunt magazine. In addition, Guillen assists Tony Zapeda and Erik Sandburg in teaching printmaking at Art Center at Night (a continuing education program of night classes at the Pasadena school).

Having “grown up everywhere” as a military brat (Virginia, Peru, Pennsylvania, Italy, to name some of the places), Guillen proceeded to “study everything”—architecture, Spanish, Italian literature—before attending Art Center, where she graduated vale­dictorian. “Not entirely fair,” she admits. “I had a lot more practice going to school than most.” But it was after school that Guillen in a sense found her calling. “Once I graduated, I was overwhelmed,” she recalls. “There are so many issues that I hadn’t realized needed addressing.” Thus began an ongoing pursuit she describes as “searching for relevance,” finding her place in the world and determining what contributions an artist can make in solving our shared problems. “It’s been said that artists are the priests of our time,” she muses. “They’re supposed to show us what is important, what we should be thinking about. I aspire to that.”

www.katherineguillen.com