Karen Patterson

Background

About Karen Patterson

Curator Karen Patterson joined the John Michael Kohler Arts Center staff in May 2012 to develop the scholarship surrounding the institution’s extensive collection of self-taught art and art environment. Patterson holds a Masters from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where her academic studies focused on the collection of former SAIC professor Ray Yoshida. She previously earned a Bachelor of Arts in folklore and French from Memorial University in Newfoundland, and developed and implemented heritage and public art programs for the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia. While at SAIC, her interest in the intersection of history and contemporary art was furthered through studying the leveling of hierarchies between academic and self-taught art represented in the home collection of artist Roger Brown and, later, Yoshida’s home collection.