Background
Karen Heagle was born in 1967, in Tomah, Wisconsin, United States.
712 Broadway St S, Menomonie, WI 54751, United States
In 1990, Karen received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stout.
200 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205, United States
In 1995, Heagle got a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute.
1 Art School Road, Skowhegan, ME 04950, Madison, ME 04950, United States
In 1997, Karen attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Karen Heagle and Rachel Churner.
Karen Heagle was born in 1967, in Tomah, Wisconsin, United States.
In 1990, Karen received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stout. Later, she continued her education at Pratt Institute, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1995. Also, in 1997, Heagle attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Since 2001, Karen has been taking part in different group exhibitions. During her lifetime, she had many solo exhibitions at different galleries, including I-20 Gallery in 2006 and 2011, Churner and Churner Gallery in 2013 and On Stellar Rays Gallery in 2017. Also, in 2019, her solo exhibition, titled Invocations, took place in Sargent's Daughters, New York City.
Heagle participated in Art on Paper 2012, at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina. She is also on the board of the Fire Island Artist Residency, a queer art residency, that takes place in Cherry Grove Fire Island every summer.
In summer of 2015, Karen served as a visiting artist at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, in summer of 2016 and summer of 2018, she held the same position at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Currently, she lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City.
The End of Abundance
Vultures in a Tree
Vulture with Carcass
Untitled Vulture
Pregnant Man
Nude Self-Portrait
Untitled (striped hyena-talisman)
Hunter Moon
Sanctification (and the Removal of Impurities)
Ecstatic Instant
Severed Cattle Heads
Babylon
Helmut/Cognac Snifter/Lava Lamp
Prodigal Daughter
Peacock
Vulture with Ripe Fruit
Untitled (Vitto)
Untitled (Jesus)
Battle Armor (Codpiece)
Slave Boy
Untitled (Sacred Bull)
Prometheus
Whipped Cream
Karen Heagle's often tongue-in-cheek paintings use historically-derived allegory to interrogate themes of gender, sexuality, vanity and eroticism. Inspired in part by her study of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painting, Heagle's works take up still life and the genre painting as mutable formats to be invested with symbolic meaning, portraying animals, lava lamps, knights' armor and characters from television dramas with subtle irony. Her paintings often include a kaleidoscopic treatment of color, amplified by the addition of metallic leaf onto her canvases, a material, that anachronistically enhances her works' oblique commentary on contemporary culture.
Heagle eschews ordinary beauty, focusing instead on the overlooked, coaxing her subjects from marginal to magical. Her sphere of saints and martyrs, gods and goddesses is populated with characters more often shunted to the sides, or eternally damned for their transgressions.
Quotations: "My goal is to comment on contemporary culture and revise women’s place in culture, as both strong and sexual."