About the Artist: Catrin Welz-Stein

March 2024 Issue
About the Cover Artist — Catrin Welz-Stein 
by Lindsay Gifford

Catrin Welz-Stein is known for her unique talent of combining her drawings with inspiration from art of past days, making many of her pieces have a nostalgic or vintage feel and look. With a German childhood background from Weinheim, Germany, she has always been a painter and crafter.

Catrin’s career was as graphic designer, finishing her studies in Darmstadt, and working for various agencies in Germany and the USA. Once she became a mother, she rediscovered the world of magic and fairy tales while reading to her children and became enthralled with those book illustrations which began to infiltrate her graphic design style. Nowadays, Catrin is designing illustrations for magazines and books. “I’ve never stopped working as a graphic designer completely, because I still do commissioned work and have clients, as well.”

In 2009, Catrin started to create digital art by combining historical paintings, curiosities, and fairytale-like illustrations into surreal and sensual images. Pink Magazine’s March Cover art, “The Bouquet” can be found on Catrin’s website among a plethora of other digital artworks. She calls it “digital collaging” and the results are stunning and captivating.

Developing her computer skills to work with Photoshop, which is an art in itself, it is now her main software program for digital collaging. "While still working as a graphic designer, I created digital birthday cards for my colleagues. I collaged their figures into funny situations and created a story around them. I guess this is when my passion for digital collaging began," professed Catrin. "Looking at old photographs, I always wonder what the story behind the scenes is, and this inspires me to create my own story for it."

Catrin shared how she stays on top of her art as much as possible each day, even when the flow of creativity is only at a trickle. "We all have days when our brain is not creative at all. The difficult thing with creativity is that you can't switch it on when you like to. It comes and goes. Therefore, it is helpful to be ready when creativity comes to you. I try to do something creative every day, just to have my routine and keep on producing."

"In my art, I blur the lines between imagination and reality, while exploring womanhood in many different ways,” Catrin added. “I like to give my images a vintage, ethereal feel. During the creative process, I scan old paintings, photographs, and illustrations, making sure they are in the public domain. I work digitally and transform the scans by first tearing them apart. They are like puzzle pieces that I work together, until they reveal a whole new meaning and tell an unknown story."

Of note, The Cincinnati Opera discovered Catrin’s art on the internet and approached her; to date she has created 13 opera posters—all stunning works. In addition, she has had an additional 50 cover artworks featured by various magazines, authors, and publishers. “I've been self-employed for almost 20 years, and the opera illustrations are definitely a highlight of my work as an illustrator. I love thinking back on them.”

The word “powerful” is the perfect definition of Catrin’s natural talent and presence, however her work reveals so many more layers of intrigue. You must experience more of her artworks; we had a hard time choosing and kept changing our minds.

Catrin offers original art, limited edition prints and greeting cards for sale via her website. Owning a slice of her delicious designs is just that easy. Not only here, with this feature, can you see a sample of her artwork, we encourage you to dive into the world of her fantastic designs at: www.catrinwelzstein.com.