Karen Kilimnik (b.1955, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) creates enchanted, self-contained environments in her works. Spanning across painting, mise-en-scène, sculpture, drawing, and photography, her oeuvre moves between the grandeur of 17th- and 18th-century Romantic painting and the iconography of contemporary culture. The world of ballet and childhood, romantic painting and pop music, television and film, advertising and fashion, books and magazines, mythology and history, signs of witchcraft, time-travel, and mystery from fairytales is combined with the present. Playfulness, fun and glamour are at the centre of her work, offering a lens onto shared cultural fantasies.

Her work has been presented in numerous international exhibitions, including NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (2023), Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008), Aspen Art Museum (2007), Serpentine Gallery, London (2007), and Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2006). Works by Kilimnik are held in major public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In fall 2026, Karen Kilimnik will be the subject of major solo exhibitions at Centro Pecci in Prato, Italy, and at the Kunstverein in Hamburg.