Karin Batten — Painter/Print maker

Karin Batten was born in Hamburg, Germany and studied painting and sculpture at Central Saint Martins College, London, England with a BFA. She received her MFA from Hunter College (CUNY), New York City. From 1974 to 1986 she taught drawing and design at Parsons School of Design in NYC. In her most recent work Karin’s luminous abstract improvisations of color, texture and form reflect her life-long fascination with the natural world. Her process parallels her inspiration, she describes it as “organic, spontaneous and intuitive like swimming in a vast sea”

Residing at Westbeth the artist housing community in New York City, she was the Westbeth Gallery Director and curator from 2016-2019. Batten has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Represented by the June Kelly Gallery in New York City her work is included in permanent collections at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, NY, Whitney Museum, NY; Pfizer, Inc.; the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Davidson College, Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson, NC, and the Hotel Millenium, NY. Batten has received grants for public art from the New York City Metropolitan Transit authority and the New York State Council on the Arts. The Pollock Krasner Grant she was awarded in 2001 and 2019 and an Artists’ Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was one of the artists directly affected by the World Trade Center attack. Her studio was on the 91st floor of Tower One.