Karyn Olivier, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, creates sculptures, installations and public art.
Currently, Olivier is the Public Works Artist in Residence at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and will present a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. In 2026, Olivier will also unveil a memorial honoring Vel R. Phillips, the late politician, judge, and civil rights activist. In 2024, she participated in the Whitney Biennial (NY, NY), La Trienal at El Museo del Barrio (NY, NY), the Malta Biennale (Valleta, Malta), and Prospect.6 Triennial (New Orleans, LA). In 2024, Olivier also unveiled the Stenton House Memorial, Right Here, honoring Dinah, a formerly enslaved servant, and was commissioned to create a year-long installation at Rice University (Houston, TX). In 2023, Olivier presented her second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and presented a solo show at Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA). In 2022 Olivier participated in Documenta 15 and installed a permanent commission for Newark Liberty International Airport.
Olivier has exhibited at the Gwangju and Busan biennials (South Korea), the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture (Dakar, Senegal), The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA P.S.1, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, The Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), SculptureCenter (New York), ICA Watershed Boston, among others. Solo exhibitions include Everything That’s Alive Moves at Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (2020), and A Closer Look at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis (2007).
Olivier has received numerous awards, including a 2025 USA Fellowship, a 2020 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, the 2018–2019 Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, a 2019 PEW Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts Award, a Pollock- Krasner Foundation grant, the William H. Johnson Prize, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, a Creative Capital Foundation grant, and a Harpo Foundation grant.
MFA, Ceramics, Cranbrook Academy of Art, 2001
BA, Psychology, Dartmouth College, 1989
Selected Awards
Rome Prize (2018)
The American Academy in Rome
Guggenheim Fellowship (2007)
The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
NYFA Award (2011)
New York Foundation for the Arts
Selected Work
Olivier, K. 2017. The Battle is Joined [mirrored acrylic, plywood, studs]. Monument Lab, Mural
Arts, Philadelphia, PA, September 16–November 19, 2017.
Olivier, K. 2018. Witness [gold leaf, paint, canvas]. Memorial Hall, University of Kentucky,
Lexington, KY
Olivier, K. 2015. Here and Now/Glacier, Shard, Rock [lenticular photo in billboard structure].
Drifting in Daylight, Creative Time, Central Park, New York, NY, May 15–June 20, 2015.
Olivier, K. 2018. Wall [bricks, used clothing and steel]. Lehigh University Art Galleries and
Teaching Museum, Bethlehem, PA, January 24–May 25, 2018.
Olivier, K. 2006. Doubleslide [steel]. Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, July 19–October
22, 2006.