About

Karen Albanese Campbell is an award-winning multidisciplinary visual artist who creates in print, paint and fabric. She has twice been awarded “Best in Show” for the All Ohio Show at the Zanesville Art Museum, in two different categories: prints/drawings and textiles. As a core-member of Phoenix Rising Printmaking Coop, she participated in a “Big Ink” large scale printmaking event, creating her award winning print “Moment of Silence” which is now in the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art. She most recently was awarded an Ohio Arts Council award at the 2022 Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit. Karen has been awarded grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council, including a "Big Ideas" grant in 2021 for her new venture, "Just Walls Public Art" bringing art into public assistance agency waiting rooms. As her first Just Walls project, she is completing art for 4 WIC (Women, Infant & Children) clinic waiting rooms.

Preferring to show her work in public venues, Albanese Campbell has exhibited her work in solo shows at Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus, the Stowe-Munroe Falls (Ohio) Public Library, Groveport (Ohio) Municipal Hall, Vineyard Columbus North Hall Gallery and Phoenix Rising Printmaking Gallery, also in Columbus. She has also been exhibiting her paintings, prints and art quilts in juried group shows around the United States since 2011, many in public venues as well. Recently she exhibited work at 934 at CMH gallery at John Glenn International Airport, 934 Gallery Outdoor Mural installation and an exhibit titled "Refuge/Refugee" at Northern Illinois University Art Museum. Most notably, Karen exhibited "The Travelers" series at ArtPrize 2021 in Grand Rapids, MI. She was one of 20 artists invited to exhibit by Monroe Community Church for their 20th year participating in ArtPrize.

Albanese Design, her own studio creating promotional, identity and branding projects for a wide variety of clients including several performing arts organizations, operated in the earliest years of her art career. During this time, she won an Emmy Award for art directing a TV promotional spot for Players Theatre Columbus. Her experiences as a designer have come full circle as she develops interior public art for her new Just Walls Public Art project.

Karen earned her BFA in painting and printmaking at Boston University where she studied with a “Who’s Who” of Boston Expressionists and significant artists such as John Wilson, Sidney Hurwitz, David Aronson, James Weeks and Arthur Polansky. Karen is currently the President of Phoenix Rising Printmaking Cooperative. She and her husband lived in southern Mexico for a time before they settled in Columbus, Ohio.