Karen Graffeo is an active multi-media artist in photography, performance and installation. She has had numerous national and international solo exhibitions. She is a Professor Emeritus of Art and directed the photography program at the University of Montevallo. She is the recipient of a Tanne Foundation award for humanitarian documentary projects within her art practice, and was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar appointment to Romania. In 2005 she was named University Scholar at the University of Montevallo for her long term (1999-present) documentary photography work in Roma (Gypsy) communities and refugee encampments in Europe. Her work was published in Aperture Magazine and is included in public and private collections in Japan, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, and Birmingham, Alabama. Her work is currently on display at the Museum of African History in Havana Cuba.
She writes of her history as an artist:
“I am a southern prodigal daughter, born in south Mississippi and living in Alabama. I have traveled extensively and have chosen to make work within cultures that both match and contrast my ancestry. I consider my art to be cultural diplomacy devoted to trust and intersectionality. I am in service of story and raw honest visual truth. I work from my documentary/humanitarian projects to inform my art which encompasses installation, performance, and mixed media. I live in Alabama and my artistic practice is focused by “Southerness”.
