Gesine Krätzner Bio

My life, as seen from space, is a dotted line that leads from a small town in Germany to art college in Stuttgart, on to London, where I earned an MA in animation at the Royal College of Art, and then across the pond to Portland, Oregon. I got there when it was just wet and not yet hip. In 2018 I moved to Berlin for a couple of years for a change of scenery. Now I once again call the Pacific NW home.

Animation: In the UK I worked as a freelancer for media companies including Aardman and the BBC before taking a job with animation studio LAIKA (then Will Vinton Studios) in Portland. As a designer and a director I have shaped the look of award winning advertising campaigns and short films. Highlights of my animation career include design for Puget Sound Energy, Ben&Jerry’s, eggos, esure.com, The Goodlife Recipe and ESPN and direction for m+m’s, The American Cheese Board, Oxfam and Crayola. For the Harvard Medical School I designed and directed the animation for Once Upon A Tide, an educational film about the health of our oceans. I have also contributed character designs to feature film development.

Art and Illustration: Most of all I love to draw and sculpt squiggly creatures and to dream up small worlds and stories for them to inhabit. In the last few years I have been lucky enough to be able to concentrate on my personal art. My sculptures are exhibited in galleries along the West Coast and I was an artist in residence at the Portland Children's Museum in 2017. As of 2017 I have partnered with Georgetown Home and Garden to release my own blobhouse line of garden sculptures, which are now available in stores throughout the US and Canada. Occasionally I share my love of design and animation with art students as a college teacher.

Oregon Public Broadcasting made this fun documentary about me a little while ago and checked in with me during the pandemic resulting in this video.

Here is a look back at my picture-a-day advent calendar 2015 and advent calendar 2016 , advent calendar 2017 , advent calendar 2020 and advent calendar 2023