Catherine Forster is an artist, writer, filmmaker, and independent curator based in the Northwest. She received an M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has earned numerous awards for her films, a Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, and acceptance into residencies here and abroad. Forster is included in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: Feminist Art Base, Brooklyn Art Museum. Her artwork has been shown at the Notebaert Museum (Chicago), Flint Institute of Art, Carnegie Art Museum, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, South Bend Regional Art Museum, Rockport Art Museum MA, Masur Museum of Art LA, Indianapolis Art Center, Quartier am Hafen Gallery, Cologne, Germany, 516 Gallery Albuquerque, The Rymer Gallery (Nashville), Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius, Lithuania), Brick City Gallery, Missouri State University, Merwin Gallery Wesleyan University IL, Central Michigan University, Nazareth College Art Center, Rochester, NY, Freewaves (LA), San Diego Art Institute, Llewellyn Gallery, Alfred State College NY, City of Louisville Colorado Sculpture Garden, Orange County Contemporary Art Center, Exit Art (NY), and the Hyde Park Art Center Chicago, to name a few.

Her films have been screened at the Indy Film Library Amsterdam (Best Director), Sao Paul Intl Short Film Festival, Krakow Intl Short Film Festival, Currents Santa Fe Intl New Media Festival, Magmart Film Festival Casoria Intl Contemporary Art Museum (Italy), Seattle Film Institute, East LA Intl Film Festival, the Great Lakes Intl Film Festival, Experiments in Cinema NM, Chicago REEL Short Film Festival, Ascona Film Festival, Ascona Switzerland, the Other Venice Film Festival (CA), IndieFest, La Jolla, CA, Echotrope New Media Arts Festival (Omaha), Festival Internacional de Video Arte de Camagüey (FIVAC),Cuba, Damn Short Film Festival, Boulder, NV, Simultan Media Arts Festival (Romania), Sleeth Gallery, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Llewellyn Gallery, Cassidy Theatre, Chicago Cultural Center, Berkeley Arts Center, Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Alfred State College, Alfred, NY, Echo Park Film Center (LA), Buffalo Public Broadcasting TV, Buffalo, NY, World Film Festival Los Angeles, Directors Lounge (Berlin), International Art Film Festival London, Portsmouth Film Festival, Portsmouth, UK, One Minute Film Festival Brazil, 7th Logcinema Art Films, Centro Cultural Borges, Sala " X Experiencias en Escena," Buenos Aires, Babul Eco Film Festival, Hyderabad, India, and the San Diego Intl Women Film Festival.

Forster was the founder and director of LiveBox, a roving gallery focused on new-media art and is currently a member of the curatorial committee for the Experiments in Cinema Festival Albuquerque, NM. Her trajectory as an artist began with careers in microbiology and business, each experience presented a pathway to her current practice. As a microbiologist, her preferred medium was a microscope; today it is a camera and a paintbrush.  Forster’s fascination with the world beneath the microscope transformed to the extraordinary arena played out beyond the lens. She is forever fascinated by the capacity of the “third eye” to capture what is missed or denied. Today Forster is most challenged by the relationship between identity and mass media. Her work covers themes of cultural constructs of the feminine, gender non-conformity, and our interactions with nature as a mediated resource.