Catherine Anyango Grünewald is a Kenyan-born Stockholm-based visual artist, illustrator, and educator whose work spans drawing, moving image, and graphic narrative. Internationally exhibited, Catherine is known for her psychologically charged, atmospheric style and for engaging themes of justice, history, and human experience. In 2010 her graphic novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was published to critical acclaim and has been translated into eight languages. Her most recent major work is the graphic novel Dead Man Walking: Graphic Edition (2025), created with Sister Helen Prejean and Rose Vines. In this adaptation of Prejean’s landmark memoir on the death penalty, Catherine’s drawings bring a visceral and human dimension to the story, amplifying its ethical and emotional complexity for a new generation of readers. Catherine's drawing work uses the materiality of drawing tools to explore meaning, exploiting the physical properties of pencil and eraser to render events with realism, but to also explore unseen dimensions. Her drawings tackle the historical and contemporary systemic oppression of characters who have been marginalised and underrepresented. The process and labour invested in the work is a direct homage to the subjects, victims of violent domestic or institutional crimes. In 2019 she was awarded the Navigator Art on Paper Prize, the world’s largest award for work on paper. Catherine taught at the Royal College of Art in London for ten years and is now a Senior Lecturer in Illustration at Konstfack in Stockholm. Catherine is the great grand daughter of Swedish painter Sigrid Hjertén - whose name has inspired Residence Sigrid.
