Karyn Olivier: Seep: List Gallery, Swarthmore College
The List Gallery is pleased to present Seep, a solo exhibition of mixed media works by the preeminent artist Karyn Olivier. The exhibition, accompanying catalog, and related events are funded by a generous grant from the William J. Cooper Foundation. The artist will lecture about her work on Wednesday, November 1 at 4:30 PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema. The List Gallery reception will follow, 5:30–7:00 PM. List Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Sundays, Noon–5:00 PM. Gallery admission and events are free and open to the public.
For nearly twenty years, Karyn Olivier has been creating sculptures, installations, and photographs that transform familiar objects and public spaces. She often repurposes materials from the waste stream such as fence posts, buoys, used clothing, playground slides, and roofing materials. Her artworks engage viewers with a range of issues, including the plight of international refugees, the legacy of slavery, the role of public monuments, and unsustainable construction practices. Through engaging with history, contemporary events, and architectural contexts and by deftly transforming everyday materials, Olivier creates works that are poignant, thought-provoking, and at times, whimsical.
Karyn Olivier was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in 1968, and moved to Brooklyn, New York as a child. She graduated with a BA in Psychology from Dartmouth College in 1989, and a MFA in ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001. Olivier has exhibited internationally including at the Gwangju and Busan biennials; the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture in Dakar, Senegal; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Whitney Museum of American Art; and MoMA PS1. Her solo exhibitions have been presented at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis. Her public art projects include Approach, a 52-foot-high permanent installation at Newark Liberty International Airport. Olivier's numerous awards include the Anonymous Was a Woman Award, the Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Award, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, the William H. Johnson Prize, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, a PEW Fellowship, a Creative Capital Foundation grant, and a Harpo Foundation grant. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia and is a professor of sculpture at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.
Installation view: Karyn Olivier: Seep, List Gallery, Swarthmore College, 2023.
Photo by Joe Painter.
