INLAND EMPIRE - MAGAZINE

Colton's Kat Trevino won her first art award - a poster for the Reading is fundamental campaign - when she was 7. It was a unicorn over rainbow clouds and the slogan read, "Find your Fantasy..Read."
Kat, now 31, has stayed with that theme, creating fantasy worlds in her art. "I try to capture what's in people's minds and their imaginations that you couldn't otherwise picture," she says.
Kat does this in a variety of mediums. She's a painter, photographer, graphic artist, poet, sculptor, and has even done glass blowing. She wins at least 2 awards a year and takes classes to keep up with the trends in art. "Next, I have to make short films," she sighs. And she writes too, her first novel, 'When Darkness Falls', is a Vampire fable that is expected to be out soon. Kat painted the "Butterfly Sky" mural on the Hollywood 101 FWY. She started the project 3 years ago and although it looks finished, she says it isn't. "I was working about 4' from traffic: it was bizarre. We were on a scaffold, about 20' up - I have to get the nerve to get back up there and finish the sky," she says.
Kat has a day job as a Graphic Director with the Cyber Group Network in San Bernardino. She also has her own Graphic illustration business - KATTWORKS.

THE SUN - NEWSPAPER

LOOKING THROUGH
ROSE COLORED GLASSES

Kat Trevino, who previously had shown her work to a limited audience, now has millions admiring her work in Hollywood, today Trevino's artwork decorates Highway 101. "The main thing for me right now is to get my work in front of as many people as possible," says Kat, who is running her own design studio, KATTWORKS. All of it revolves art, in addition to creating visuals she also is a writer, with 3 anthologies and a novel in process. She has been plumbing her creative side for as long as she can remember, for fun and profit. "I was drawing before I was walking," she says.
She did her first mural in Middle school in her first roll of art director, the lead in her art class group designated to adorn the school's walls. She graduated high school having taken all the art classes available, written up in her year book as a blooming writer/artist. She immediately went to a design college graduating in the top of her class.
Kat has been feeding her muse in exhibits with painting and sculpture in museums and galleries. Reluctant to describe her style, she uses words like, "futurist" and "dark", exclaiming, "People like the strangest things and I'm happy to create it." Her sculptures include a version of the Electric Chair and a bullet filled head called, WAR HEAD. Her one dimensional work lean toward the surreal and ethereal.
Kat's 'dark' side, she admits has given way to vibrant color, experimenting with different styles. Not a fan of realism in her work, she explains, "I see art as something you have in your mind's eye that you transform to the outer world. It should take people to different realms, open their mind to what before was just void."

Gregg Patton

THE ARROWHEAD NEWS

HER LIFE IS HER ART

Commuters stuck in a traffic jam on their way to L.A. are treated to a pleasant sight as they complete their transition form Interstate 10 to the 101 FWY.
With downtown's enormous buildings as a backdrop, freeway wall are painted with a series of murals as part of a Beautification of L.A. program administered by the California Department of Transportation.
Among those murals, there is one not so large but very special indeed. It depicts a pair of glasses in the big blue sky, Inside the frames are butterflies, clouds and a pretty woman's face (Kat's). This 12 X 20' mural was painted by Kat Trevino, a 28 year old art major at S.B. Valley College. "I think it's a great way to reach millions of people to share my art with."
In addition to the obvious problems presented with painting a mural, Trevino laced precise equipment, worked in temperatures well over 100s, and was not paid. "Its just sweat, tears, and a lot of effort," Trevino said. Though she originally called her mural 'Rose Colored Glasses', she prefers not to name her work, because, "It means many things to many people, I didn't want to limit my viewers, art is so subjective."
In Trevino's art world, everything is unlimited, just like her imagination.
"Art is what is in my head, my self expression. It has something to do with feelings, emotions, imaginations that come to me."
Kat Trevino has started her own business too. Aside from painting, she works on her poetry and is researching for her book, 'When Darkness Falls', a Vampire story.
Butterflies, colorful backgrounds and flowers - those kind of atmospheres - are not always represented in Trevino's art work. Some of it tends to be dark and negative, just like her favorite color: black.
"I think life is painful," she says, "Art makes people feel better: to relate the pain we all suffer in life."
Kat is happy with her family, made up of her child hood sweetheart, now husband and her cats. As an artist, Trevino said that she sees art as her children and she wants to dedicate her entire life to it.

Pang-Ling Chang

IONA - MAGAZINE

Kat Trevino a graphic artist from Southern California is making a name for herself through her art exhibitions, and you won't want to miss her latest creations! They will definitely blow you away. Kat Trevino knew from the early age of 7 after winning her first art award, that Art was her calling. After graduating she immediately starting attending a Design College, and started making a living doing what she loved. She sits on the board of directors for The Fine Arts Institute, member of the County Museum, Riverside Art Museum and the Pomona Artist's Colony. Kat takes her photography and alters it into a fantasy like realm through computer manipulation. Making them into what she sometimes refers to as Dreamscapes, and people can't seem to get enough of it. The initial road to success was tough, for people had not heard or even seen such pieces, many Museums and Galleries wanted more traditional work. What makes Kat's art special and different? Unlike other art work where you see is what you get. Kat says, "the fact that my art work is new and objective and it's left up to the viewer to determine the image's meaning." Like her slogan, "Where Your Only limit is Your Imagination".

Iona Cunningham