Karen Fitzgerald
Karen Fitzgerald’s paintings are shaped by an enduring connection to the natural world. Raised on a dairy farm in the Midwest, she spent formative time in woods, fields, and gardens, experiences that continue to inform her work. Her family, especially her mother, encouraged her interest in visual art, while a musical background also contributed to her sensitivity to rhythm and composition.
In high school, Fitzgerald was given open studio time and began painting independently. She also won a statewide poetry contest. Those early experiences established two lasting interests: the discipline of making images and the capacity of language to approach ideas that cannot be easily measured or described.
Fitzgerald earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before moving to New York City and completing an MFA at Hunter College. She describes this education as rigorous and comprehensive, giving her a grounding in visual language and art history. Her artistic direction has remained consistent rather than experimental. “The relationship of matter and spirit is at the heart of my work,” she says.
The paintings begin with the tangible world. Fitzgerald is attentive to earth, light, and the physical presence of materials, but she also considers another dimension that is felt rather than delineated. Poetry, philosophy, and metaphysics are important touchstones in this inquiry. Her aim is to find visual forms capable of holding that relationship without attempting to resolve it into a fixed explanation.
Artists and writers including Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Martin, Czeslaw Milosz, and Mary Oliver were important early influences. For Fitzgerald, their work demonstrated that a close engagement with nature could coexist with an attention to spiritual experience. This connection continues to guide her own use of abstraction, light, and layered surfaces.
Energy is a central idea in Fitzgerald’s work. She considers it a bridge between the physical and spiritual realms, and sees light as especially important in calling attention to metaphysical presence. The forms in her paintings do not illustrate a single narrative. Instead, they create space for reflection through shifts in density, transparency, color, and surface.
Her materials support that approach. Fitzgerald works with watercolor, thinned oil paint, and mica, building luminous, subtle layers that allow the surface to remain active and responsive. The process requires a degree of restraint. Rather than controlling every outcome, she allows the materials to participate in the development of the work. “This way of working demands that I step back from my intentionality and trust the process,” she explains.
Gilding with precious metals extends the paintings’ material range and introduces another register of light. It is not used simply as embellishment, but as a way to heighten the otherworldly quality Fitzgerald seeks. Across her practice, physical matter remains inseparable from the larger questions it carries: how light is perceived, how energy moves through a surface, and how painting can make room for experiences that resist direct representation.
