Biography

Born in The Bronx and raised on Long Island, Karen Whitman showed an early interest in art, music, and gymnastics. While making illustrations for her college newspaper at State University of New York, Buffalo, and becoming fascinated upon seeing so many printed multiples of her work, she became a printmaking major and received her BFA in that discipline. After graduation she moved to New York City in 1976, where she worked at numerous commercial printing and graphic design establishments. In time, Karen became a color separator for fine art silkscreen establishments, hand separating as many as seventy-five colors for a single print, but it was always for another artist. During that period, she made an occasional etching, worked in stained glass, and attended painting classes at the Art Students League. After moving to the art colony of Woodstock, N.Y. in 1994, she discovered relief block printmaking which had not been offered as part of her BFA printmaking program. It was then that she discovered her passion and her future was written. Karen Whitman’s vision is very personal. Her cityscapes are sometimes based on reality, but for her it is merely a point of departure. Other cityscapes are entirely invented; however, whichever route she takes, her city is always inviting and engaging and reconnects the viewer with the more human side of the concrete jungle. One final note - Owing to Karen’s other passions, she was an acrobat in the Big Apple Circus, sang solo at Carnegie Hall, has written and performed music with her husband and released several CDs. But those are other stories.