Karen Chandler

After many years of traditional training in oil painting, photography, design and computer studies (interspersed with bartending and a variety of other day jobs) I began doing illustration work for all of the major publishing houses, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Ballantine Books and Bantam Books. I have done covers for several Agatha Christie series, the R.L. Stine Goosebumps young adult series and the Victoria Thompson Murder Mystery series, among many others.

I was selected to participate in the NASA and United States Air Force Art Programs. My original oils for them hang in the Deputy Director’s office at the Kennedy Space Center, the Pentagon and the National Aviation Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
My work is in several private collections, as well as the permanent collection at the Union League Club of New York.

My mural work includes Sarasota Heroes, a 20'x24' piece in Sarasota Florida, to honor Sarasota County’s health care workers on the front lines of the Covid battle.

In 2021 I had the honor of being recognized as a Fellow of The Hermitage
Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida.

I studied oil painting for five years at the Stevenson Academy of Traditional Painting in Sea Cliff, New York and afterward at the New York School of Visual Arts (design) and New York Institute of Technology (photography). I have been painting in oils and acrylics for over 35 years, and am primarily interested in subjects—people and places—that touch an emotional chord.