Karyn Olivier creates sculptures, installations and public art. Her practice merges multiple histories and collective memory with present-day narratives. Through the slight manipulation of familiar objects and spaces, the artist re-contextualizes the viewer’s relationship to the ordinary. 

Olivier received a BA from Dartmouth College in 1989 and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001. In 2024 she participated in the Whitney Biennial, La Trienal at El Museo del Barrio, and the Malta Biennale. A memorial honoring a formerly enslaved woman at Stenton House, Philadelphia was recently unveiled and in 2025 Olivier will unveil another Philadelphia memorial, commemorating more than 5,000 African Americans buried at Bethel Burying Ground. She has exhibited at the Gwangju and Busan biennials; documenta fifteen, World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, Dakar, Senegal; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Studio Museum in Harlem, Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA P.S.1, SculptureCenter, all in NY; ICA Philadelphia, PA; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; among others. Olivier has received numerous awards, including the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, a NYFA Award, and a Creative Capital Foundation grant. She is a sculpture professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.