Carol Steen is an artist, writer and curator who lives and works in New York. She has had over 20 solo gallery exhibitions, her first solo exhibition in 1973 was at the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...

, and her work has been in over 50 group exhibitions including shows at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, the Brookgreen Gardens Museum in South Carolina, the Cranbrook Museum in Michigan, and the

DeCordova Museum The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the southern shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950, and is the largest park of its k ...

in Massachusetts. Steen's work has also been exhibited at the

Theatre for a New Audience The Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a non-profit theater in New York City focused on producing William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classic dramas. Its off-Broadway productions have toured in the U.S. and internationally. History Thea ...

in Brooklyn, NY, the Museum of Modern Art of Ukraine, and

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 375 programs. It is Michigan's third-l ...

, Detroit, Michigan. Steen has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire; the Printmaking Workshop in New York City; and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA); among others. Her work is in the collections of several public art collections including the

, the Robert McGlaughlin Gallery in Canada, and the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Experience of synesthesia

She is notable for her artworks which make use of her experiences of

synesthesia Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with sy ...

and for her work in making the knowledge of synesthesia available to people, particularly through the

American Synesthesia Association The American Synesthesia Association (ASA) is a not-for-profit academic and public society whose mission is to foster and promote the education and the advancement of knowledge of the phenomena of synesthesia, a neurological condition in which stim ...

. Steen experiences colors while viewing letters and numbers ( grapheme-color synesthesia), music (timbre-color synesthesia), and touch-color synesthesia in response to acupuncture and pain. She has shared her synesthetic experiences on the first website about synesthesia created by Karen Chenausky, Adam Rosen and her in 1996 at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. She studied art at

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Academy of Art, a graduate school for architecture, art, and design, was founded by George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth in 1932. It is the art school of the Cranbrook Educational Community. Located in Bloomfield Hills, Mi ...

where she gained her Master of Fine Arts. She has taught at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

and at

William Paterson University William Paterson University, known as WP, officially William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ), is a public university in Wayne, New Jersey, United States. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Founded in 1855 an ...

. Steen currently teaches at

Touro College Touro University is a private Jewish university system headquartered in New York City, with branches throughout the United States as well as one each in Germany, Israel and Russia. It was founded by Bernard Lander in 1971 and named for Isaac a ...

, New York. Along with Greta Berman and

Daphne Maurer Daphne Maurer is a Canadian developmental psychologist and professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University. She is known for her work on the development of visual perception in humans, starting ...

, she contributed to and edited ''Synesthesia: Art and the Mind'' (2008), which documents an exhibition of artists who were known or thought to be synesthetic. This exhibition was held at the McMaster Museum of Art. It was co-curated by her and Greta Berman and ran from September 2008 through December 2008. Steen has presented her work at numerous conferences on synesthesia including; The University of Edinburgh, 2008; University of Granada, 2007; University of California Berkeley, 2004; University of California San Diego, 2002; Yale 1999; and the University of Cambridge, Trinity College, 1997; among many others. She has been a co-chair and panelist for talks on Synesthesia and Art at the College Art Association’s annual conferences in 2005 and 2009. She has presented her work at the School of Visual Arts in NYC in 2007, at The Juilliard School every year since 2000, and at M.I.T. in 1997. She has been in numerous television and radio documentaries including “60 Minutes”, the BBC, and NPR, and in many books, magazines and newspapers including, the Smithsonian Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In addition, Steen is the co-founder, with Patricia Lynne Duffy, and current board member of the

. The character of the synesthetic painter in Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne's play The Valley of Astonishment, 2014, was based on part of Steen's life.

Selected Listing of Public Appearances

References

Bibliography

* * * * Von Klängen und Schmerzen: Nützliche Farbe, (Chapter 6 in Part II) Pages: 227234 in “Synästhesien – roter Faden durchs Leben?”, Edited by Alexandra Dittmar,Publisher: Die Blaue Eule, Essen (Germany), October 2007, English edition, January 2009. * Synesthesia, Carol Steen and Lawrence E. Marks, World Book Encyclopedia, Nicholas V. Kilzer, editor, 2013. * Synesthesia: Seeing the World Differently, Volume 11 – Automne 2012. Neurosciences, arts et literature https://web.archive.org/web/20150812213227/http://epistemocritique.org/spip.php?rubrique68 * Synesthesia and Creativity: Does seeing the world differently lead to creative insights? Sussex Conversations, The Royal Institution, April 26, 2012, London, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/fiftyyears/sussexconversations/mindandbrain

External links

Entry at the CLARA Database of Women in the Arts.
National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) . Accessed January 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Steen, Carol 1943 births Living people University of Michigan faculty American artists