Felice Koenig

Felice Koenig is a visual artist and educator. She was born in Highland Park, Illinois and received a BFA from Southern Oregon University in 1999 and an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2003. She moved in 2007 to Buffalo, N.Y., where she is a faculty member at Daemen College.

Koenig works in acrylic, watercolor, graphite, and ink. The meticulously constructed paintings for which she is best known are created by adding layer after layer of acrylic paint onto the canvas (or, occasionally, another surface). To borrow the name of a Burchfield Penney group show in which she was featured, they display “an overabundance of detail.” This approach creates physical depth, giving individual pieces a sculptural quality and generating visual tension as they both pull the viewer in to examine how they are made and push him or her away to make sense of the overall object. Such works can be compared to a microscopic closeup of pores and blood vessels, thus suggesting the vulnerability of the human body—though they can also be read as simultaneously reflecting and rejecting the sensory overload that is such a key aspect of contemporary life.

Koenig has exhibited her paintings in Munich, Germany; Guangzhou, China; and in New York, Buffalo, Chicago, San Antonio, and Portland,Ore., among other cities. She is represented in the permanent collection of the Albright Knox Art Gallery and the Burchfield Penney, as well as private collections in New York, Buffalo, Seattle, Chicago, and other cities, and she has created artwork for book covers and public art projects. In addition to her solo work, she has collaborated with media artist Meg Knowles on a videotape and installation.

For more information on Felice Koenig’s work, visit www.felicekoenig.com.