Karen Hackenberg
Artist Bio Artist Work
Karen Hackenberg received her BFA in painting from RISD, moved west to live for a decade and a half in San Francisco, and now lives and works near Seattle, WA.
In her ongoing painting and drawing series, she takes a light-hearted yet subversive approach to the serious subject of ocean degradation, presenting a tongue-in-cheek taxonomy of imaginary post-consumer sea creatures. Working traditionally with oil, gouache, colored pencil, and graphite, she lovingly and meticulously crafts images of beach trash, aiming to create a provocative visual juxtaposition of form and idea.
Her paintings are inspired by the incongruity of the man-made detritus that washes up on the otherwise pristine beach below her studio – plastic shards, plastic bottles, plastic toy animals, shotgun shells, and product packages, to name a few. With her ear to the sand for a close view, she poses and photographs the flotsam on the beach where it strands in a semi-documentary style, and then uses the photos as reference for her paintings. The resulting compositions often depict the beach trash as monolithic in the seascape, and provide visual metaphors for the overwhelming magnitude of the issue of marine debris. She is influenced by Pop Art of the 1960s – Claes Oldenburg’s monumental everyday objects, as well as Ed Ruscha’s paintings combining marketing graphics with images of nature.
In Hackenberg’s new Sea Tangle Suite of drawings, she expands on environmental themes by working from direct observation on the beach, drawing freehand directly onto the screen of an iPad Pro with a digital Apple Pencil, using a technique similar to that of David Hockney in his iPad landscape drawings. In both cases, the process of creating of these images resembles that of traditional printmaker’s hand-pulled prints, where there is no other original besides the print. Hackenberg’s Sea Tangle drawings are intentionally unfinished to embrace an open-ended and unresolved aesthetic, and are produced in limited editions of fifteen archival pigment prints on Arches paper.
Her work was recently chosen for the noteworthy exhibition, Northwest Art Now at the Tacoma Art Museum, curated by TAM’s Rock Hushka, and Juan-Roselione, curator of the Rubell Family Collection, Miami. Her additional museum exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art; the U.S. traveling Environmental Impact show; Neo-Naturalists at Museum of Northwest Art; Stilleven: Contemporary Still Life at Hallie Ford Museum of Art; and Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving at A.A.A.S. headquarters, Washington DC.
Her green sensibility has earned a place in numerous private and public collections, including the New York State Museum, NY, the Portland Art Museum, OR, the Tacoma Art Museum, WA, the Washington State Art Collection, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, WA, and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, OR.
Education
B.F.A. Painting, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
Related Professional Experience
2013-16
Panel, Exhibiting Artists, Environmental Impact Exhibition, St. Mary’s College Museum of Art, Moraga, CA
2015
Panel, Exhibiting Artists and NOAA scientists, Neo-Naturalist Exhibition, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
2014
Instructor, IslandWood, Bainbridge Island, WA
Juror / Curator, Art Convergence, Regional Exhibition, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
2013
Studium Generale Lecturer, Peninsula College, Seattle, WA
2012-13
Painting Instructor, Gage Academy of Art, Seattle, WA
2012
Lecturer Edge Professional Development Program, Artist Trust, Seattle, WA
Selected Public Collections
Peninsula College, Washington State Arts Commission, Port Angeles, WA
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR
U.C. Berkeley, Environmental Design Library, Berkeley, CA
Carnegie Mellon University Library, Rare Books, Pittsburgh, PA
Washington State Art Collection, Port Angeles, WA
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, WA
New York State Museum, Albany, NY
Providence Medical Center, Everett, WA
Awards
2017
USA Fellowship Nominee, United States Artists, Chicago, IL
James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Nominee, Artist Trust, Seattle, WA
2016
Purchase Award, NW Art Now, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
2014
Nomination: Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
2013
Excellence Award, Jake Seniuk, Environments Exhibition, Art at the Port, Anacortes, WA
Juror Award, Justin Gibbons, Linda Tesner, 10x10x10xTieton Exhibition, Mighty Tieton Gallery, Tieton, WA
2011
Grants for Artist Projects (GAP), Artist Trust, Seattle, WA
Best of Seattle Art Walk Award Finalist, Vermillion Gallery Exhibition, City Arts Magazine, Seattle, WA
Juror Award, People’s Choice Award, Rock Hushka, Couplings Exhibition, Gallery 110, Seattle, WA
Special Juror Award, Rock Hushka, Expressions Northwest Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
Special Award, Gary Faigin, Expressions Northwest Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
2010
Best of Show, 2D, Esther Luttikhuizen, Next Exhibition, Arts at the Port, Anacortes, WA
2008
First Place, 2D, Susan Parke, CVG Show, Bremerton, WA
Juror Award, K.C. Potter de Haan, About Face Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
2006
Juror Award, Susan Parke, Expressions Northwest Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
2005
Juror Award, Esther Luttikhuizen, Expressions Northwest Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
Special Juror Award, Jake Seniuk, Expressions Northwest Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
2003
Juror Award, Greg Bell, Art Port Townsend Exhibition, Port Townsend, WA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2018
Karen Hackenberg: Artist As Activist, Port Townsend School of the Arts, Art Experience Gallery, Port Townsend, WA
Karen Hackenberg: Watershed and Divining Line, Esvelt Gallery, Columbia Basin College, Pasco, WA
2017
Karen Hackenberg, Helen S. Smith Gallery, Green River Community College, Auburn, WA
2016
Oil and Water, Smith and Vallee Gallery, Edison, WA
2015
Karen Hackenberg: Watershed, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, WA
2014
On the Beach, Skagit Valley College Art Gallery, Mount Vernon, WA
2013
Watershed, Paper Hammer Gallery, Seattle, WA
2012
Strand, Shoreline Community College Gallery, Shoreline, WA
The Art of Karen Hackenberg, Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery, Bainbridge Island, WA
2011
Watershed, Vermillion Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
2009
Divining Line, The Gallery at OK Hotel, Seattle, WA
Selected Two-Person Exhibitions
2017
Karen Hackenberg and Michael Felber, Aljoya at Thornton Place, Seattle, WA
2014
Salish Stories, Simon Mace Gallery, Port Townsend, WA
2011
Material World, Northwind Arts Center, Port Townsend, WA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
Environmental Impact II, The Robert Bateman Centre, Victoria Harbour Steamship Terminal Building, Victoria, B.C.
2021
Environmental Impact II, Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA; The Detroit Zoo, Detroit, MI; Museum of The Rockies, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
2020
Environmental Impact II, The North Carolina Arboretum, ASheville, NC; Dennos Museum Center, Northwestern Michigan College, Traverse City, MI; Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University, Hays KS
2019
Environmental Impact II, The James Museum, St. Petersburg, FL
Celebrate Art: 27th Annual Group Exhibition, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Seattle Art Fair, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Motherland: 2019 CoCA Members’ Show, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA
We Love Vermillion, Vermillion Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
2018
Celebrate Art: 26 Years, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Seattle Art Fair, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Home, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, WA
2017
Celebrate Art: 25 Years, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Out of Sight, Seattle Art Fair/Vital 5 Productions, Seattle, WA
Work x 5, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
2016
Northwest Art Now @ TAM, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
Environmental Impact I, Stauth Memorial Museum, Montezuma, KS; St. Mary’s College Museum of Art, Moraga, CA
Pop Up (AR)t, Mini Maker Faire, Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA
Title/Tidal: Artist Books and Water, Kohler Art Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
2015
Stilleven: Contemporary Still Life, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, Salem, OR
Neo-Naturalist, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
Environmental Impact I, University Art Museum, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA; Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC; The Art Museum, SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, NY
Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint, Art Works for Change, Mill Valley, CA
Surge, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
10x10x10xTieton, Mighty Tieton Warehouse, Tieton, WA
2014
Sustaining, Abmeyer + Wood Gallery, Seattle, WA
Environmental Impact I, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA; Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA; Roger Tory Peterson
Institute, Jamestown, NY; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
2013
10x10x10xTieton, Mighty Tieton Gallery, Tieton, WA
The Meaning of Wood, Rose Center for the Arts, Lower Columbia College, Longview, WA
2012
Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving, A.A.A.S. Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Positive/Negative 27: Material Transformation, Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
Politicizing Aesthetics, John A. Day Gallery University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD
Celebration of Washington Artists, Artist Trust, Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, WA
2011
From Ordinary to Extraordinary: the Art of Being Green, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
Fate of the Forest, Whatcom Art Museum, Bellingham, WA
18th Juried Northwest Biennial, Schack Art Center, Everett, WA
Back Country, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
2010
10x10x10xTieton, Mighty Tieton Gallery, Tieton, WA
Green: On the Edge, IMA Museum, Friday Harbor, WA
Safe Harbor, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
Envision Cascadia! Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia, WA
2009
Strait Art, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
2008
Focus on Nature X, New York State Museum, Albany, NY
NuArt ’08, Art at the Port, Anacortes, WA
2007
Expressions Northwest, Northwind Art Center, Port Townsend, WA
Home is Where the HeArt Is, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
2006
Then and Now: Collectors and Their Artists, Northwind Arts Center, Port Townsend, WA
2005
Culture and Agriculture, New Visions Museum Gallery, Marshfield, WI
Emergent: New Directions in Sustainable Art & Design, Woods Gerry Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
Glimpses of Life, ArtsWest Gallery, Seattle, WA
2004
Architectural Detail, Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts, Fredericksburg, VA
2003
The American Landscape, Clark House Gallery, Bangor, ME
Public Art
2018
King County Portable Works Collection, Seattle, WA
2015
Surge, Welcome to the Plastisphere installation, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA
2013,18
Washington State Art Collection, Peninsula College, Port Angeles, WA
2011
Tower Art Program, Painting Commission, Providence Medical Center, Everett, WA
2010
Art Outside, Sculpture Installation, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, WA
Bibliography
“The Inspired Woman,” Marc Cain Customer Magazine, Bodelshausen, Spring – Summer, 2020.
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