Karen Snouffer

Biography

In her studio practice, Karen Snouffer creates mixed media objects, collages and installation, exploring the tensions felt in visual and physical movement and the power of contradiction to expand that tension and beauty.  Her work is often inspired by: past and present experiences with varied forms of dance; identity; nature and its forces; and intersections of two-dimensional and three-dimensional space.  Materiality is a powerful force as well, as seen in the merging of unexpected, non-traditional media with conventional techniques.  Having worked with a mathematician in a collaborative studio art class, Snouffer has explored chaos theory, how randomness and pattern play a role in nature, in works of art and the art making process.

Snouffer has exhibited nationally at venues such as: Art Center South Florida, Miami; Aqua Art Fair, Miami; The Work Space, New York; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati; Hammond Harkins Gallery, Columbus, OH; The Ohio State University Center for the Humanities; Poor Dog Space, Los Angeles; Soo Visual Arts Center, Minneapolis; and internationally at La Médiathèque, Epernay, France.  She is a former residency fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, and a past Artist in Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; a recipient of five Ohio Arts Council individual artist fellowships; a GLCA New Directions Initiative; and a McGregor Foundation Global Exchange Grant to France.  She is represented by Hammond Harkins Gallery in Columbus, Ohio.

In the fall of 2016 and 2018, Snouffer traveled to Rome, Italy, as a Kenyon College Professor of Art.  Here, she explored a new studio direction, which emerged from the intense urban environment and plethora of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art.  In 2017, for the aforementioned collaborative entitled class, “Math in the Studio,” students explored with faculty the connections and intersections shared by the fields of math and art.  She and her math colleague were invited to present a paper on this class in July 2018, in Stockholm.

Snouffer has collaborated with poets, dancers, sculptors and new media artists.  Her work has been published in three books: The Next Hedgerow; Love Life; Love Life: Memory and Nature at Play; and Somatic Principles and Dance

Snouffer received both her BS in Education and her MFA at The Ohio State University.

As a Professor Emerita at Kenyon College, she teaches one class yearly in painting, drawing, or mixed media.  She has a studio and residence in Gambier, Ohio

Press

A View From the Easel, Hyperallergic 2019

Shows

Karen Snouffer: Seeking Joy at The Ohio State University Faculty Club