Karsten Creightney

Biography
Karsten Creightney’s process presents a reality based on personal perceptions as opposed to mythologies of written history. He makes art as an inquiry by reassembling, reorganizing, and repurposing existing materials to discover new truths and possibilities that arise from the remnants of the past.

Creightney builds his canvases from paper, scraps of paintings, cuttings from books, and paint which are layered together as fields of information. Outcomes are never predetermined as compositions of urban and natural environments emerge from the chaos of materiality. Histories of problematic places are questioned and the past is examined to reimagine the future. Images of flowers- a signature motif – are utilized as elements of joy and interrupt the picture plane as a figure might. The enlarged xerox dots are a tool to embody the artist’s constant desire to break things apart and bring them back together. They hum and buzz across his canvases.

Karsten Creightney works in multiple media combining prints, paint, photographs, and found materials to create images that capture the partly lived, partly imagined sense of place experienced in memory. His work is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Springfield (MO) Art Museum, and numerous other institutions. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico and lives and works in Albuquerque, NM.

I feel a responsibility to produce art that questions the socio-political mainstreams of our society. I believe in the ability of visual arts to confront the myths I see depicted by popular culture. I want to create artwork that celebrates the legacies of a different set of heroes, and rewrites history from the margins. In my work, I address a multitude of issues – some political in nature, while others are more conceptual and abstract. But throughout all of my work, it is my hope that I convey a pervading sense of joy. Where there is joy, there is hope.
– Karsten Creightney

Education
2011
MFA, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2001
Professional Printer Training Program, Tamarind Institute of Lithography, Albuquerque, NM

2000
BA, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022
Karsten Creightney, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2020
Alcoves 2020, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM

2018
Occupied Territory, Exhibit 208, Albuquerque, NM

2017
Paper Visions, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM

2014
Black and White, Inpost Artspace, Albuquerque, NM

2012
Karsten Creightney: Works on Paper, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI

2011
Wishful Thinking: New Paintings and Prints by Karsten Creightney, SCA Contemporary Art, Albuquerque, NM

Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
A Different Mirror, Wilson Museum at the Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, Vermont
The Printer’s Proof: Artist and Printer Collaborations, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Creating an American Identity, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO

2021
Common Ground: Art in New Mexico, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Dwelling: Experiences of Shelter, Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU, Wichita Falls, TX
Frol Broundin and Karsten Creightney: Printed Matters, Kruglak Art Gallery at Mira Costa Community College, Oceanside, CA
Made in ABQ, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2020
CHARCOAL: Strokes of Vitality, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Radical Reimaginings, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM
Trinity: Reflections on the Bomb, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Community, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI

2019
African American Art from the Permanent Collection, Indiana Tech, Fort Wayne, IN
Creating an American Identity, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO

2017
Prints by Southwest, South Broadway Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM
Deck the Walls, Exhibit 208, Albuquerque, NM
Arts Thrive, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Prints form the Permanent Collection, Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Songs from the Extraction Zones, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM

2016
Off the Record, Inpost Artspace, Albuquerque, NM

2015
Common Ground, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
Common Ground, Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
Visualizing Albuquerque, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
The New Mexico Connection: Recently Acquired Work in the Bernalillo County Public Art Collection, African American Performing Arts Center: Expo New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2014
The Bold and the Beautiful: African American Masterworks from the Collection, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
History and Hope: Celebrating the Civil Rights Movement, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

2013
Indelible Images: The Politics of the Social in Contemporary Art, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN

2012
Once Upon a Time: Prints and Drawings That Tell Stories, Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Local Exposure, Selby Fleetwood Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
New Voices, New Visions, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, FortWayne, IN

2011
Celebrating Diversity in Art, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
Wishful Thinking: New Paintings and Prints by Karsten Creightney, SCA Contemporary Art, Albuquerque, NM
New View: 17th Annual Juried Graduate Exhibition, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM

2011
Celebrating Diversity in Art, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
New View: 17th Annual Juried Graduate Exhibition, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM

2010
Zanatta Editions, Sherry Leedy Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Emergent Visions: Young Antiochians Make Art, Herndon Gallery, Yellow Springs, OH
Inprint II, SCA Contemporary Art, Albuquerque, NM

2009
Burial, The Agency, Albuquerque, NM

2008
Crossing, Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque, NM
Splash: 14th Annual Juried Graduate Exhibition, UNM Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM

2007
At First Sight, Jonson Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2006
The Artwork of Karsten Creightney, Out Post Art Space, Albuquerque, NM
Ancestral Highway, Visiones Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

Collections
Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR
Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS
Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO
Bernalillo County Public Art Collection, Albuquerque, NM
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Sheldon Museum of Art at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MO
Tama University Art Museu, Kyoto, Japan
Tweed Museum University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN
Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, TN
Wichita Falls Art Museum at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

Press
2022
Kathaleen Roberts, Expressign himself “beyond worlds”, Albuquerque Journal, November 11
Maggie Grimason, Once Upon a Time in Albuquerque, Hyperallergic, October 11

2021
Nancy Zastudil, Review: Thirtieth Anniversary Show at Richard Levy Gallery, Southwest Contemporary, June 18
Maria Manuela, Five Things to Do This Weekend, New Mexico Magazine, June 18
Alcoves 20/20 #4, Kolaj Magazine, February
Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Treasures from the Vault: Karsten Creightney, Articulate: From the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, February 22

2020
Maria Manuela, New Mexico Magazine, November 6
Michael Abatemarco, Karsten Creightney at Richard Levy Gallery, Pasatiempo in Santa Fe New Mexican, October 30
Ric Kasini Kadour, To Imagine is to Hope: How Collage Helps Us Think of a Different World, catalogue essay for the exhibition Radical Reimaginings, 516 Arts, August 22

2018
Nancy Zastudil, Studio Visit: Karsten Creightney, Southwest Contemporary (THE Magazine), October 1

2017
New Mexico PBS, ¡COLORES!: Painter Karsten Creightney, KNME, July 8
What’s your deal Karsten Creightney?, Pyragraph, February 3
Kathleen Roberts, Artist Uses Multiple Mediums to Piece Together Hybrid Visions, Albuquerque Journal, January 9
Margaret Wright, Paper Visions Catalogue Essay, 516 Arts, February 4

Press Release
2021 Made in ABQ at Richard Levy Gallery
2020 CHARCOAL: Strokes of Vitality at Richard Levy Gallery