About

BIO

Katya Neptune was born in Angeles City, Philippines. She moved to the United States and has been a part of the South Florida community since 1989. Neptune is a Fort Lauderdale-based sculptor, painter, photographer and installation artist with a socially engaged practice. In addition to her studio practice, she is also the Founder, Creative Director, and Chief Curator for ArtHeart, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit, founded in 2009, seeking to empower artists of all levels to inspire healthful and imaginative growth in their communities. Neptune has curated numerous exhibits in South Florida, and she has featured over 250 established and emerging local and international artists. ArtHeart also serves as a fundraising mechanism for orphans in Rwanda, Africa, by partnering with We Are Zoe, a non-profit organization striving to break the cycle of poverty in Rwanda through education initiatives for Rwandan children. Neptune has exhibited her work at the Coral Springs Museum of Art, Bailey Contemporary Arts, 13th Street Gallery, 1310 Gallery and Miami Independent Thinkers, during Art Basel. Neptune has also been published in periodicals, such as the Sun Sentinel, the Broward Palm Beach New Times, Pelican Newspaper, Pompano Beach Magazine, RiverWalk Fort Lauderdale and Voyage Miami. 

Statement

Neptune’s installations involve scenarios in which the viewer is called to question the temporality of beauty, being, and meaning and the extent to which the body can handle the mind. Her synthesis of mixed media sculpture, paintings, coupled with an interest in abstract mapping, serves as a triangulation of experience, meditation, and faith, trying to locate oneself in space, time, and being. As such, by embracing her experience and bravely exposing her pain and struggle, the purpose of her work is to demystify and de-stigmatize mental health through deeply personal and intimate visual narratives of her suffering alongside her discovery of healing. Her practice comes about in solitude, through an analytic process seeped in reflection and rumination. The application of each medium stems from a psychologically and emotionally charged state, and her imagery gravitates toward delicate and stylized whimsical paintings, like those from a children’s book, inspired by the books she used to read to her children. The product can be jarring and unpleasant, but every soul responds to the world differently. Finding ways for the body and the mind to align is central to her practice and a search for answers that lie deep within us all.