Karen Fitzgerald

Karen is a visual artist living and working in NYC. She was raised on a dairy farm in the mid-West and it is this early and close association with the natural world that threads through her work. She is focused on the energy that suffuses our world, as well as the Universe: her work explores energy in its myriad manifestations. As a commissioned artist, she has worked with a wide range of institutions and participants, on many different projects. Widely exhibited in the United States, including at The Queens Museum of Art, Islip Art Museum, Rahr-West Museum, Madison Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, the University of Arizona – Tucson and the United Nations in NY, she continues to actively exhibit her work. She has received funding from the Queens Community Arts Fund, the Greenwall Foundation and the Women’s Studio Workshop. In 2014 she traveled to South Korea on a full fellowship to Haslla Art World in Gangneung. While there, she produced a large, gilded painting, which remains in their permanent collection. Karen’s work is in the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Union Gas collection, the Rienhart Collection of Germany, NYU Langone Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Montefiore Medical Center and many other public and private collections. She has completed several large commissions, including 28 round panels at PS 239 in Queens, and a 28’ x 56’ exterior mural for PS 193 in Whitestone, Queens. Fitzgerald has curated many exhibitions including, “Change” for Flushing Town Hall (2009) as well as producing a 5 venue exhibit,“Transpositions Along the Queensboro Bridge”, with curator, Judith Tolnick Champa, celebrating the centennial of the Queensboro bridge. In 2017 she curated “In This House of Sky,” at Westbeth Gallery, (NYC) featuring 11 artists whose work is actively engaged with the imagination. Fitzgerald sits on the Board of Directors for Art Connects New York. For 32 years she has been a teaching artist and continues to provide consultations for a wide range of institutions on a variety of educational issues. Since 2013, she has taught a variety of workshop series for Lifetime Arts, including workshop series for the Queens Library, and New York Public Library systems. She has taught at St. John’s University, Iona College and worked as education director for the Queens Symphony Orchestra. In 1985 she earned an MFA from Hunter College, and a M.Ed. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1990. Karen’s work can be seen at: http://www.Fitzgeraldart.com. She lives with her husband and family in Woodside, New York; her studio is in Northern Long Island City.