Karen Whitman

Karen Whitman is a Woodstock, NY printmaker, specializing in linoleum block prints. She has a BFA degree in Printmaking from S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo and has also studied at The Art Students League. She has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and has won numerous regional and national awards, including seven national Medals of Honor. Karen is a member of The Society of American Graphic Artists and The Allied Artists of America. Whitman’s prints can be found in the collections of the British Museum, The Institute of Fine Arts in Taipei, Taiwan, The R. W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport, LA, The Portland Art Museum in Oregon, The Museum of the City of New York, The New York Public Library, and The New York Historical Society, among others. The linocuts of Karen Whitman were featured in the Dec.,2002 issue of American Artist Magazine and she is listed in Marquis Who's Who in American Art and Who’s Who in America. “My prints express an exuberance and affection for city life, and although I’ve lived in the artist colony of Woodstock, NY for 25 years, 2.5 hours from away from New York City, I maintain a close connection to it and make frequent sketch trips there to be directly inspired by its people and architecture. In addition to the images I draw entirely from life, there are those I invent completely, and there are those that are a combination of the two, offering something more than the sources that inspired them. The prints, narrative in quality, invite the viewer to participate in and invent the story that is suggested to them personally by that print’s captured moment. Sometimes, the buildings are the main characters, which I strive to imbue with as much personality as those of the two and four legged creatures that populate many of my images. In focusing on city dwellers living their daily lives and giving life to its architecture, I aim to portray the city as positive, accessible, and beautiful, even playful; and yet, inadvertently, I seem to convey a sense of mystery which, at times, makes it a challenge to differentiate between whimsy and foreboding. The city is all of these things at once, which is why it inspires me and is the primary subject of my work. I have been told that my prints evoke a sense of the city that people have within them that cannot be captured by taking a photograph, that is difficult for them to put into words, but makes them feel good and uplifted to recall. It is touching people in this way that motivates me to do this work. It also feels to me like an expression of love and connection when I do it, keeping me at peace with the world, something I hope that viewers of my work experience as well.”

 

View Available Works

• R. W. Norton Art Gallery - Shreveport, LA, 2019
• Walter Wickiser Gallery - 210 11th Ave., Suite 303, NYC, 2016
• The Old Print Shop, NYC - 150 Lexington Ave., NYC, 2015
• The Stories We Tell: Hudson Valley Artists - The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, S.U.N.Y. at New Paltz, 2015
• American Eyes - Art from the Collection of Gil and Deborah Williams - Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY, 2010
• Belksie Museum of Art & Science - Closter, NJ, 2008
• Impressions of New York: Prints from the New-York Historical Society - The New-York Historical Society, NYC, 2004
• A Celebration: The Hofstra Museum at 40 / Works on Paper - Hofstra Museum, Hempstead, NY , 2003
• New Acquisitions: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum - Rutgers University, , New Brunswick, NJ , 2002
• New York by New Yorkers: Artist Views in Prints - Museum of the City of New York, NYC, 2002

• The Art Students League of NY, - New York, NY,1993 
• Parsons School of Design, Certificate in Graphic Design - New York, NY,1990 
• S. U. N. Y. at Buffalo, BFA in Printmaking - Buffalo, NY,1975 

• Art Times Review of solo exhibition at The Woodstock Artists Association - Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2006
• Impressions of New York: Prints from the New-York Historical Society by Marilyn Symmes - 2005
• American Artist Magazine Feature - December, 2002