April 2025— “Karyn Olivier’s Elusive Art Bears Witness to Hidden Histories, An expansive artist whose practice floats across various mediums, her works take many forms: a white column that rests on a historical table, a set of 15 stacked orange construction barriers, heaps of found clothing or fishing nets, an aesthetically pleasing piece of driftwood resting atop sheets of steel, photographs that are partially obscured by asphalt. They typically come off as quiet or deceptively straightforward, slowly unfolding to reveal their nuances.”
Civitella Ranieri
Fellowship Award
March 2025—I have been awarded the Civitella Ranieri Visual Arts Fellowship. “The Civitella Ranieri Foundation is pleased to announce this year's Fellows. During our 2025 season, which begins on April 28th, we will welcome 50 Fellows in the fields of music composition, writing, and visual arts, coming to the Castle from 30 countries.”
Interview with Milwaukee News WISN-TV
Feb 2025—“Meet the artist behind a memorial for a Milwaukee trailblazer,” Philadelphia-based artist, Karyn Olivier, is designing a new art installation honoring Vel R. Phillips.
Meet the 4 Philly artists who received the United States Artists Fellowship award
Feb 2025— “There’s so much care, there’s so much history. People are friendly. People can post on the listserv, ‘Could someone pay for my groceries this week?’ And people show up … So living that way informs, becausel I feel very alive here and I feel my neighbors and my community they’re just very present, they’re very Philadelphia.”
2025 USA Fellowship Award
Proud to share that I am one of the 2025 USA Fellows!!! This award will have an immense impact and is fortuitously timed. I am soo grateful. “In 2025, USA enters our 20th year of commitment to durable, sustainable support to artists and creative practitioners in All Stages, in All Ways, Always. This year, we are thrilled to award a new cohort of USA Fellows, fifty exceptional artists and collectives working in ten disciplines in twenty-one US states, spanning the most nascent to mature stages of careers.”
City selects Karyn Olivier work for installation at Vel R. Phillips Plaza
October 2024—Philadelphia-based, Trinidadian-born artist Karyn Olivier has won the commission to create a public artwork for installation at the new Vel R. Phillips Plaza, which opened in Downtown Milwaukee this past June. Olivier’s permanent installation will be a memorial titled "I Didn’t Do It Alone," that honors the late Milwaukee politician, attorney, judge and Civil Rights activist, Vel R. Phillips.
Ellsworth Kelly Grant
September 2024—“MOCAD's ambitious exhibition will include a range of installations and sculptures, and a newly commissioned site-specific work created by Olivier through her travels to Detroit to engage with local histories and gather materials. Olivier's exhibition at MOCAD will feature works that engage the ongoing contributions of Black communities and address their omission to expand historical narratives.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
August 2024—Five artists at this year’s Whitney Biennial have very close Philly ties, “A piece of driftwood she had gathered 13 years ago now finds itself in Stop Gap. Olivier kept thinking about the wood and while she grieved her best friend’s death during the pandemic, she finally knew what she could do with it. She had clothing left over from a previous show at ICA. She took them and filled a large, center gap in the wood.”
Stenton Museum Dinah Memorial
April 2024—The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the upcoming unveiling of the Stenton Museum Dinah Memorial, a project I was chosen for in 2019. “At long last, the ‘Dinah’ memorial will be unveiled in Philadelphia’s Logan neighborhood.”
A review of the Whitney Biennial was published on ArtNEWSl
March 2024—A review of the Whitney Biennial was published on ArtNEWS: “…while many bodies have fallen prey to the watery depths of the ocean, traces of their presences always linger behind,” -Alex Greenberger, “A Blazing, Brilliant Whitney Biennial Heralds a New Kind of Body Art”
Phoebe Bradford included my work in “Who to See at Whitney Biennial 2024”
March 2024—“In How Many Ways Can You Disappear (2021), Olivier dislocates fishing materials from sea to gallery to present a memorial of maritime histories and reference to today's refugee crisis.” Phoebe Bradford, “Who to See at Whitney Biennial 2024”
Hyperallergic review of the Biennial
March 2024—The exhibition that often acts as a barometer of trends and ideas percolating in global art communities has both hits and misses. ”First Impressions From the 2024 Whitney Biennial” Hrag Vartanian, Valentina Di Liscia and Natalie Haddad
The New York Times
January 2024—The New York Times Announces the Whitney Biennial, “Whitney Biennial Picks a ‘Dissonant Chorus’ of Artists to Probe Turbulent Times.”
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than The Real Thing.
I am excited to announce I am one of 71 artists to participate in the upcoming Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing.
Prospect.6 the future is present,
the harbinger is home.
I am part of this years Prospect New Orleans Triennial: Prospect.6 the future is present, the harbinger is home.
