Bio
Nils Karsten works across drawing, collage, woodcut, painting, sculpture, and installation. His practice begins with attention: collecting images and objects, noticing what stays with him, and discovering relationships through making. Family photographs, newspapers, record covers, religious imagery, and toys become material to cut, draw, carve, rearrange, and transform. Images move between materials and scales, gathering new associations along the way. Erasure, repetition, and traces of earlier decisions remain part of the work, leaving meaning open to discovery.
Born in Frankfurt and raised in Hamburg, Germany, Karsten trained as a cabinetmaker in Berlin before moving to New York in 1995. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1999 and his MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2003. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2002.
His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, including at Pearl Lam Galleries in Hong Kong, the Pera Museum in Istanbul, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. His work is held in public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the Mint Museum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, and the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei.
Karsten has taught drawing and painting at the School of Visual Arts since 2003. His teaching shares his studio practice’s emphasis on close observation, experimentation, and learning through making. He lives and works in Brooklyn and Callicoon, New York.
