KAREN FITZGERALD

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Karen Fitzgerald lives and works in New York City, in Western Queens. She is a mid-career artist, teacher, and curator. Born and raised on a dairy farm in the Midwest, it is this early, close relationship with the natural world that informs her work. Her work is actively exhibited in the United States, with 23 solo exhibitions to date. She received grants from the Queens Community Arts Fund, the Women’s Studio Workshop, and New York Foundation For the Arts.  Her work has been actively collected in both private and public collections. Heavily influenced by poetry, her work delights in the energy of gardens, mysteries and all things invisible.  

In the artist’s own words:

I have worked exclusively with the circle, or tondo, for over 30 years. It is a form that represents the interconnectedness of the physical world, a concept that is fundamental to my work.

Within that format I use fluid media—watercolor, thinned oil paint, mica. This allows me to build up layered surfaces that are luminous and subtle. This way of working demands that I step back from my intentionality and trust the process, giving full voice to the materials I am using. I also incorporate gilding with precious metals as a way of adding to the “other worldly” quality I am seeking for my work.

The essential relationship of matter and spirit is at the heart of my work. The physicality of the earth is tangible and real. But another dimension is indelibly linked to that materiality, one that is experienced even though it cannot be measured or delineated. That elusive relationship between matter and spirit has been explored extensively in verbal form—poetry, philosophy, metaphysics—and those texts are essential touchstones in my work. Finding a way to translate that awareness into visual language is an essential commitment in my work.

I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. We lived close to the ground, tuned to the earth and its ways. While I have lived most of my adult life in Queens, that midwestern rootedness continues to be a touchstone for my work.

My most recent project explores the restless shifting of light and energy, a phenomenon I see most clearly from the studio space I built on land that has been in my family for many generations. My dual allegiances to the rich cultural life of New York City as well as the simple isolation of my rural Wisconsin studio are giving my work a vital and expanded perspective.