Karin Birch
2026
Karin Birch (b. 1960, Point Barrow, Alaska) combines spontaneous, in-the-moment painting with slow, meditative hand embroidery and beadwork to create densely detailed abstractions. Utilizing stitching’s mesmerizing ability to mark time and a focus on color, pattern, and texture, she explores psychological landscapes that shape perception and meaning through contemplation.
Birch studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY, National Gallery of the Craft Council of Ireland, Kilkenny, Ireland, and through the Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State in: Sierra Leona, Burundi, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and Brunei, as well as multiple Fiber Internationals at Snyderman-Works Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.
Birch’s work is in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Art Bank, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the US Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Her work has been reviewed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post and The Baltimore City Paper.
She’s had 16 solo shows to date, including Surface Tension at NOMA Gallery, in Frederick, MD, A Way Home, at Gravers Lane Gallery, in Philadelphia, PA, Stillness, at Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Inova Schar Cancer Institute, in Fairfax, VA, Meaning in Abeyance, at Hillyer Art Space, in Washington, D.C. and Advance & Retreat, at Delaware Contemporary, in Wilmington, DE. She has received numerous awards including The James M. Green Fund, 2025, Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant, 2022, Frederick Arts Council/NEA C.A.N. Recovery Grant in 2022 and Carl R. Butler Individual Visual Artist Award in 2019. Karin lives and works in Brunswick, MD.