Catherine Armbrust grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas but has enjoyed life in various parts of Missouri since 1989. An alumnus of the University of Missouri, she earned her MFA in Fibers & Sculpture and a BA in Anthropology. Armbrust currently lives in Columbia, Missouri and works as the director of the George Caleb Bingham Gallery on the MU Campus. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the MU School of Visual Studies and teaches Fibers at Columbia College (Columbia, MO). Though her work has shifted somewhat since her husband’s sudden passing in 2015, Catherine Armbrust’s mixed media work most often conflates biological and cultural themes in the forms of costumes, dioramas, collages, soft sculpture, and installations. In that work she channels a Rococo spirit to parody human methods of collection, ornamentation, pleasure, play, and seduction.