KARYN OLIVIER
(Trinidad and Tobago, 1968)
EDUCATION
Olivier investigates our social interactions with familiar objects, spaces and each other, through the use of sculpture, installation, public works, photography and video. She often manipulates the familiar — from the redundancy of replicated objects to the exaggeration of what appears to be already there. Her work often explores the changing countenance of intimacy as it fluctuates between a private (individual) experience and a social (collective) one. This exploration converges with her observation of nostalgia, which functions in her work through cultural and historical references. She conflates these, using the simplicity of a minimalist aesthetic to induce a perceptual shift in our reading of these once familiar objects.
2001 Cranbrook Academy of Art, Master of Fine Arts
1989 Dartmouth College, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2014 MARSO, Mexico City, Mexico New York City Percent for Art, Tetherball Monument, commission, New York, NY
2009 Creative Capital Grant, Inbound: Houston, Houston, TX (exhibition book forthcoming fall 2013) Moores Opera House, Road Signs, University of Houston, Houston, Texas (video premiere and live performance)
2007 Laumeier Sculpture Park, A Closer Look, (catalogue), St. Louis, MO
2006 Mattress Factory, Factory Installed, (catalogue), Pittsburgh, PA
2005 Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Time to go home, Dallas, TX Women and their Work Gallery, Winter hung to dry, Austin, TX
2004 Dupree Sculpture Park, Billboard Project, Houston, TX
2003 Feldman Gallery, Bench (seating for one), Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR
2002 Project Row Houses, Round 16, Houston, TX
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Ulrich Museum of Art, Stocked, (catalogue), Wichita State University, Wichita, KS; traveling to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ and the University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
2012 University of Delaware Museum, Magical Visions: 10 Contemporary African American Artists, catalogue, Newark, DE Contemporary Wing, NEXT Generation, (catalogue), Washington, DC
2011 Ecoh Galeria, Who Runs the Space Now?, (catalogue), Curated by Sofia Mariscal, and Sandino Scheidegger, Mexico City, Mexico Rotunda Gallery, A Brooklyn Salon, (catalogue), Brooklyn, NY
2010 World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures, International Photography Exhibition, Dakar, Senegal Studio Museum in Harlem, The Production of Space, New York, NY Third Streaming, BITE: A Street Inspired Art and Fashion Exhibition, New York, NY Hendershot Gallery, Balancing Act: Works by Miriam Cabessa, Gary Komarin and Karyn Olivier, (catalogue), New York, NY
2009 Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Make Room: Karyn Olivier, Amanda Ross-Ho, Lisa Segal, Atlanta, GA Uferhallen, Carnival Within, (exhibition book), Berlin, Germany Studio Museum in Harlem, 30 Seconds off an Inch, (catalogue), New York, NY Real Art Ways, Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art, (catalogue), Hartford, CT Studio Museum in Harlem, Collected, New York, NY Momenta Gallery, The Mood Back Home, Brooklyn, NY
2008 Gwangju Biennial, (exhibition book), Gwangju, Korea Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Learning by Doing: 25 Years of the Core Program, (exhibition book), Houston, TX
2007 Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Black Light/White Noise, (catalogue), Houston, TX Rotunda Gallery, Mas’ From Process to Procession, Brooklyn, NY
2006 Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, Trace, New York, NY
HONORS, AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2013 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2011 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Award Residency at Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas
2010 William H Johnson Prize
2009 William H Johnson Prize—Finalist prize Residency at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
2007 The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant Award The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Art Matters Grant 2005 Creative Capital Grant
2005-2006 Residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York,
2004-2005 Residency at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space Program, New York, New York
2004 Emerging Artists Fellowship, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York,
2003 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, (catalogue) Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, Individual Artist Grant
2001-2003 Residency at Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Core Program, Houston, Texas
2000 Residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine, Permanent Collections Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York