Natalie Horberg was born in Los Angeles, California in 2003. At age 11, her family moved across the country to Woodstock, New York. She had her first solo show, “Far and Wee,” in 2019 at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum. Horberg was also a collaborating artist in Yoshitomo Nara’s group show “youth,” which took place at the Yutaka Kikutake Gallery in Tokyo, Japan in 2019; her debut short film “October Pep” was screened as part of the exhibition. That same year, her work was displayed at the Japanese gallery Utrecht/ NOW IDeA in the form of a solo show called “Stayers.”
Horberg went on to receive her BA in Film and Philosophy from Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan, she wrote and directed a short titled “Knowing Desmond,” which won Best Experimental Short at the Yale Student Film Festival; it is now available to view on NoBudge. Her thesis film, “Dawn’s World” won Best Student Short at the 2026 Woodstock Film Festival.
Horberg has been a contributing cartoonist to The New Yorker magazine since 2025. Now based in Philadelphia, PA, she works as a freelance animator and live portrait illustrator. She has illustrated portraits at dozens of events across NY, Boston, San Francisco, and LA–from private corporate gatherings, to toy store pop-ups, to charity drives, birthday parties, bookstore celebrations, children’s fests, and more.
Using art, film, and comics as a means of linking the surreal to the real, the solemn to the humorous, and the strange to the endearing, Horberg’s work is an ongoing collection that strives to connect people through the magic of human-spirited visuality.
Notable collaborations and features are listed below:
Soduk, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Utrecht/ NOW IDeA, Portals Gallery, Wired Gallery, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, Smithsonian Folkways, Calabasas Film Festival, The Marist Circle, Chronogram Magazine, Uncommon Magazine, Rookie Magazine, The Wesleyan Argus, The Lavender, NoBudge, the Yale Student Film Festival, ArdorU and The New Yorker.
Instagram: @nataliehorberg
