Sharona Katan is the Israeli born visual artist known worldwide as the wife of Jonny Greenwood, the acclaimed guitarist of Radiohead and an Oscar nominated film composer. While many people first discover her name through her husband’s fame, Sharona has spent decades quietly building her own identity as an artist, art director, and outspoken voice on issues close to her heritage. She works under the professional name Shin Katan, and her visual contributions appear on official soundtrack releases connected to Greenwood’s solo and collaborative music projects. Beyond her creative work, she has also stepped into public view in recent years through her writing on Israeli identity and her response to political pressure aimed at her family. This article explores her background, her artistic career, her decades long marriage, her family life, and the causes she has chosen to speak up for.
Early Life and Family Background
Sharona Katan grew up in Israel within a Jewish family whose roots trace back to the Middle East. According to her own published writing, she is the daughter of Egyptian and Iraqi Jewish parents and the granddaughter of a Jew born in Jaffa in 1912. Her father’s family came from Baghdad, and her mother’s side came from Alexandria, both immigrating to Israel during the mid twentieth century wave of Jewish migration from Arab countries. This heritage places Sharona among the Mizrahi Jewish community, a group with deep historical ties across the Middle East and North Africa.
That layered cultural background became a defining part of Sharona’s identity. She has described herself publicly as an Arab Jew, a term that reflects the blend of Middle Eastern and Jewish culture she grew up with. This upbringing shaped not only her personal outlook but also the themes she later explored through her artwork, including questions of belonging, memory, and cultural inheritance.
How Sharona Katan Met Jonny Greenwood
Sharona’s life took a new direction when Radiohead traveled to Israel to perform in the mid 1990s. It was during this period that she and Jonny Greenwood crossed paths and began a relationship. The connection between the two grew quickly, rooted in shared interests in art and creative expression. Their courtship led to marriage in 1995, a milestone that arrived just as Radiohead was rising toward international stardom with albums like “The Bends” and, soon after, “OK Computer.”
Their marriage has since become one of the more enduring partnerships in the music industry, spanning three decades while Greenwood built a career that includes Radiohead’s global success and an extensive body of film scoring work, including his Oscar nominated score for “Phantom Thread” and his acclaimed work on “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master.”
Sharona Katan’s Career as a Visual Artist
Sharona is a professional visual artist who works under the pseudonym Shin Katan. Her credits are not simply rumor or fan speculation. They appear on official album packaging and on the websites of respected record labels, which gives her artistic career a documented and verifiable foundation.
Her work spans several forms, including illustration, art direction, and photography. Some of her most notable contributions include:
- Bodysong (2003): Jonny Greenwood’s debut solo soundtrack album credits Shin Katan for artwork, alongside longtime Radiohead visual collaborator Stanley Donwood.
- There Will Be Blood (2007): Her visual work is associated with the packaging for Greenwood’s celebrated score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film.
- Junun (2015): For this Nonesuch Records release by Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, and the Rajasthan Express, Sharona is credited as art director alongside Ian Patrick, with cover photos and art by Shin Katan. Notably, the official credits also list her as the person who originally conceived the Junun project itself, a detail that shows her creative influence extended beyond visual design and into shaping the collaboration that brought Greenwood and Indian and Israeli musicians together in Rajasthan, India.
- Portrait photography: Nonesuch Records has published multiple portraits of Jonny Greenwood, including images taken alongside director Paul Thomas Anderson, credited to Shin Katan.
These credits reveal a working artist whose creative fingerprint runs through some of the most respected corners of Greenwood’s catalog. Rather than being a background figure, Sharona has functioned as a genuine collaborator, someone trusted with the visual identity of major releases across nearly two decades.
Marriage and Family Life
Sharona Katan and Jonny Greenwood have built a private family life together. According to widely reported accounts, the couple has three children. Their eldest son, Tamir, was born in 2002, and Radiohead‘s 2003 album “Hail to the Thief” carries a dedication to him. Reports also point to a daughter, Omri, born in 2005, and a younger son, Zohar, born in 2008.
The family has largely avoided the celebrity spotlight, choosing instead to keep their children’s lives out of public reporting. Greenwood himself has rarely discussed his family in interviews, and Sharona has followed a similar approach for most of her adult life, appearing publicly only on her own terms. The couple has reportedly split time between England, where Radiohead is based, and Israel, maintaining ties to both of their cultural worlds.
Public Advocacy and the 2024 Haaretz Op-Ed
For many years, Sharona Katan remained almost entirely out of public conversation, known mainly through her artistic credits and her marriage. That changed in 2024, when Radiohead faced significant pressure from the pro Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement after Jonny Greenwood continued touring and recording with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, his longtime friend and collaborator on the “Jarak Qaribak” project.
As criticism intensified and Greenwood was publicly targeted online, Sharona chose to respond directly. She published an opinion piece in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, in June 2024, defending her husband’s decision to keep performing with Tassa. In the piece, she described being drawn into the controversy after a British newspaper suggested her husband held a pro war stance, and she pushed back firmly against that characterization, describing herself as pro peace. She also wrote about her family heritage, noting that she is the daughter of Egyptian and Iraqi Jews and the granddaughter of a Jew born in Jaffa in 1912, and she argued that calls to boycott Israeli artists amounted to a form of erasure directed at Jews with roots across the Middle East.
Her essay drew significant attention, in part because Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke had already referenced Sharona publicly while defending the band against boycott calls back in 2017, describing Greenwood’s wife as someone with both Palestinian and Israeli friends. That comment, along with Sharona’s own writing, placed her at the center of a broader and highly charged debate about musicians, politics, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict, a debate that intensified further after October 7, 2023.
Sharona has continued to speak on these issues on social media and in interviews connected to the controversy, positioning herself as someone willing to defend her family and her cultural identity publicly, even though she had spent most of her adult life avoiding that kind of exposure.
Other Ventures
Beyond her art and her recent public advocacy, reports indicate that Sharona Katan has also been involved in a small olive oil business connected to her family’s interests, reflecting a continued connection to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture in her personal projects outside the art world. As with much of her private life, detailed public information about this venture remains limited, consistent with the couple’s general preference for privacy.
Why Sharona Katan’s Story Resonates
Sharona Katan’s story stands out because it resists easy categorization. She is not simply a celebrity spouse who stays silent in the background, nor is she a public figure who actively seeks attention. Instead, she represents something in between: a working artist with a documented professional history, a mother who has protected her children’s privacy for decades, and, more recently, a woman willing to use her voice publicly when she felt her family and her heritage were being unfairly targeted.
Her journey from an Israeli childhood shaped by Mizrahi Jewish heritage, to a creative partnership with one of alternative rock’s most respected guitarists, to a published voice in one of Israel’s most influential newspapers, shows a life built on layers rather than a single defining role. For readers who only know her as “Jonny Greenwood’s wife,” her actual story offers far more depth: an artist whose work quietly shaped some of the most acclaimed music packaging of the 2000s and 2010s, and a woman who, when the moment called for it, chose to speak plainly about who she is and where she comes from.
Sharona Katan Bio Table
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Sharona Katan |
| Professional Art Name | Shin Katan |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Heritage | Mizrahi Jewish, with family roots in Iraq and Egypt |
| Occupation | Visual artist, art director, photographer, writer |
| Spouse | Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead guitarist and film composer |
| Year Met Jonny Greenwood | Mid 1990s, during a Radiohead performance in Israel |
| Year Married | 1995 |
| Children | Three, reportedly including sons Tamir and Zohar and daughter Omri |
| Notable Art Credits | Bodysong, There Will Be Blood, Junun |
| Notable Writing | 2024 Haaretz opinion piece on Radiohead, BDS, and Israeli identity |
| Public Profile | Largely private, with occasional public statements on cultural and political issues |
Frequently Asked Questions About Sharona Katan
Who is Sharona Katan? Sharona Katan is an Israeli visual artist and the wife of Radiohead guitarist and film composer Jonny Greenwood. She works professionally under the name Shin Katan and has contributed artwork and photography to several major music releases.
When did Sharona Katan marry Jonny Greenwood? Sharona Katan and Jonny Greenwood married in 1995, after meeting a few years earlier when Radiohead performed in Israel. Their marriage has lasted for decades, making it one of the more enduring relationships in the music industry.
What art has Sharona Katan created? Under the name Shin Katan, Sharona has contributed artwork, art direction, and photography credited on official releases such as Bodysong, There Will Be Blood, and Junun, along with portrait photography of Jonny Greenwood published by Nonesuch Records.
Does Sharona Katan have children with Jonny Greenwood? Yes. Sharona and Jonny Greenwood reportedly have three children together. Their eldest son, Tamir, was born in 2002, and Radiohead’s album Hail to the Thief was dedicated to him.
Why did Sharona Katan write for Haaretz? In June 2024, Sharona wrote an opinion piece for Haaretz responding to pressure from the BDS movement over her husband’s continued musical collaboration with Israeli artist Dudu Tassa. In the piece, she defended her husband, described her own Mizrahi Jewish heritage, and pushed back against what she viewed as unfair characterizations of her family.
Conclusion
Sharona Katan is far more than a footnote in Jonny Greenwood’s biography. She is a working artist with real, documented credits, a mother who has guarded her family’s privacy for nearly thirty years, and, more recently, a public voice on issues tied to her Israeli and Mizrahi Jewish identity. Her story offers a fuller picture of the woman standing quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, alongside one of modern music’s most respected guitarists.
