KAREN MARGOLIS

Artist Biography

Karen Margolis is a New York based artist who is fascinated by the unseen forces that shape our every thought and action. After receiving her BS in Psychology from Colorado State University, Margolis continued her research in Neural Psychology while studying portraiture at the Art Student’s League in New York City.  She furthered her studies in art at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. During a Microscopy course at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, through the New York Microscopical Society, Margolis was inspired to diverge from her investigations of figurative art in order to create work exploring universality of macro and micro patterns.

Drawing upon her background in psychology, Margolis approaches art with a scientific method. Maps also play a central role in Margolis’ work; much like our own being, maps become old and outdated, rendering them useless. The artist renews them using a modern interpretation of the ancient practice of trephination, which involves boring circular holes in the skull to cure physical and mental ailments. Giving a once disused object new potential and life. A chaotic harmony permeates each piece, the frenetic circles creating visual movement and an aesthetic symmetry that flirts with imbalance – similar to our own brain chemistry.

Margolis’ work can be found in public and private collections around the world such as a public art commission for the MTA Arts in Transit mosaic installation for the New York subway station, Hood Museum, New Hampshire, Amerada Hess Corporation, Coventry Health Insurance, Cummins, Inc., The Ritz Carlton, Lake Tahoe, CA, and Royal Caribbean Cruise, Symphony of the Seas, Miami, FL to name a few. Her work has been exhibited internationally including shows in Brooklyn, NY, Miami, FL, San Francisco, CA, Los Angles, CA, Berlin, Germany, Rijswijk Museum, The Hague, Netherlands, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT, The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, and many more. Currently her work is included in the “Cut up/Cut out” exhibition, traveling to museums throughout the United States from 2016 to 2020. 

Margolis received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1998, designed a critically acclaimed set design for an Off-Broadway play in 2000, and was awarded a workspace residency at Dieu Donne Papermill in 2000 as well. She was instrumental in creating the Dr. Seuss exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. In 2004 she conceived and implemented a program to teach art to blind and visually impaired teenagers at The Lighthouse International. In 2015 she worked as a consultant for Art Beyond Sight, coordinating with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, Margolis also organized and implemented special events for the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Artist Statement

“The Enso, Japanese for circle, is my inspiration for imagery. It is a sacred symbol in Zen Buddhism, embodying infinity and perfection. I am very attracted to this mystical aspect as well as the paradox of imperfection, and reinterpret the circle in both positive and negative space as a shared language connecting body to mind. In a struggle between destruction and creation, my art making involves two distinctly opposing procedures: burning holes in material as an act of elimination and then constructing discrete components into compositions. Within these margins I explore internal mechanisms as well as damage and mending through intimate expressions of how we are touched by circumstances of life.”

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