Karen Beckwith is a contemporary artist and printmaker that utilizes her talent to uncover and define visual depths within everyday scenes. Her work explores spaces within urban and rural settings that manifest hints of inhabitants without revealing their identities. She seeks to examine and exhibit the history of the places she recreates and comment on her discoveries through her own perspective. Beckwith’s work is evenly influenced by her roots in the rural countryside as well as her current surroundings as a city dweller and traveler.

As a young aspiring artist, Beckwith studied and graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in printmaking and a minor in illustration. In 1998, she became part of a premier group of printmakers who completed the Tamarind Institute Master Printer Fellowship.

Beckwith has since grown into an accomplished and recognized artist, exhibiting within shows such as the annual juried show at the Jewish Community Center, Cleveland, Ohio (1991), the grand reopening of Tamarind Institute’s gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1997), the 1st Ohio Print Biennial at the Beck Center for the Arts, Lakewood, Ohio (1999), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2005, 2006), the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2006), the Print Out Times exhibit, Taoyuan, Taiwan ROC (2021), and III Novosibirsk Graphic Art Triennial in Novosibirsk, Russia (2021).

Her work is also within the permanent collections of Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois, Southern Graphics Council in Statesboro, Georgia, the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Instituto Chileno Norteamericano in Santiago, Chile, the Fine Arts School in Bangalore, India, the BF Goodrich Corporation in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Progressive Art Collection in Cleveland, Ohio.

Beckwith’s work has also been included in the Aluminum Plate Technical Manual publication by the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico.