The Artist
About
Karen Howard Hanlon, 2024
Biography
Karen Howard Hanlon is an artist whose work captures the quiet beauty and stillness of the natural world. Drawing inspiration from serene landscapes and the delicate presence of birds, her paintings explore how light moves across surfaces—illuminating feathers, water, and foliage with subtle shifts in tone and texture. Hanlon’s art invites viewers to pause, observe, and connect with nature’s calm rhythms, offering a sense of peace through her thoughtful compositions and attention to detail.
Hanlon lives and works in rural Florida, and her work is held in private collections throughout the United States.
Process
Painting as a form
of attention.
Each painting begins with sustained looking — sometimes days of observation before a mark is made. Hanlon works from life whenever possible, believing that the physical presence of a subject introduces a kind of resistance that keeps the work honest.
Her process is iterative and often slow. Layers accumulate and are scraped back. Passages are reworked until they carry the right weight. She is as interested in what a painting conceals as in what it reveals.
Studio, Woodbridge, CT
Selected Exhibitions
2024
Light & Silence
Meridian Gallery, New York, NY
New American Painters
The Aldrich Contemporary, Ridgefield, CT
2023
Domestic Landscapes
Sears-Peyton Gallery, New York, NY
Works on Paper
Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Invitational
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT
2022
The Quiet Hours
Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Northeast Biennial
Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
2021
Still Life Now
Painting Center, New York, NY
View the current body of work.
Works