Karen Snouffer Spotlight
Karen Snouffer
Written by Mark Moore, April, 2026
I had the pleasure of meeting with Karen in my studio on a beautiful day. Karen spoke with passion, remembering how when she was four years old she copied an illustration from “Bambi,” and this was her very first memory with making art. Karen’s father was a commercial paint salesman. On Saturday mornings her father would take her to children’s art classes at the Columbus Museum of Art and afterward to his paint store to buy how-to art books and supplies. It was all very magical to her, seeing the tools of the trade. The exposure to so many different ways of creating art at such a young age inspired her to pursue an art career. She wishes that children had more opportunities for making art at an early age. She believes that children should be exposed to all different kinds of art because it would allow them to discover themselves more fully.
It wasn't till she went to grad school at Ohio State, when Affirmative Action had just passed and the Second Wave Women's Movement was still happening, that Karen saw more women in the work force, women professors, women artists. She expressed her excitement, “It was great, because they were bringing in artists of color, female artists, to our grad school to give talks and work with us. I was just so happy.” (One of Karen’s inspirations when she was a teen was Louise Nevelson, a Russian based artist. During grad school she was greatly influenced by the work of Judy Pfaff, Elizabeth Murray and Mary Beth Edelson.)
This encouraged her to continue stepping out of those traditional roles that were meant for women during her youth. “I think part of the problem was, when I was an undergrad, all of my teachers were men… so even though I knew in my heart I wanted to be an artist. I didn’t know how to do it.” She had had no female role models.
Karen started taking an improvisational dance class in her 30s, as a recommendation from her therapist during a difficult time in her life. “It was like I was a new person. My world had changed.” This newly found expression would soon be integrated into her artwork, as she began doing performance art. Along with performance, Karen was learning about installation art, which is the process of transforming a space. She thought that she might like to paint set designs for dance performances. She had the idea, “Why not do both, do the installation and then do a performance.”
One thing Karen loved about teaching art at Kenyon College was that she could see students discovering themselves… “When you’re working with students who are trying to figure out who they are and what their expression is, it’s so gratifying, and it’s very intimate.” Karen feels that as artists we “see more deeply than others, not that we’re better or worse, but it’s just the way that we as creatives experience things.” “I love making work. I am grateful that I can do it, [but] sometimes it's so hard.” Karen talks about how as an artist she has to “trust that her language is coming out on the paper.” When she creates work around intense topics, her language becomes louder, allowing her emotions such as anxiety and fear to take over the page.
Karen wishes that there were more frequent connections between Granville, Licking County, and Denison University but realizes she has lived here just two years, that perhaps that has affected her perspectives. She appreciates the galleries and art related events here and would like to see more contemporary art and more public murals. Karen thinks that art is important because it’s a way for people to have a sense of community and to recognize the different kinds of beauty that exist… “It's not all landscape, traditional architecture…there are so many ways that these things can interact with each other.” ”Within this world that we call art, there’s just millions of different things that can be said.”