Karyn Gabriel is a sculptural ceramic artist whose work merges art, craft and design through material exploration and an intuitive, process-oriented practice. Grounded in pattern as a visual language, her sculptural objects engage a dialogue between containment and openness. Elemental forms are both solid and porous, revealing their internal scaffolding and celebrating the underlying structures that often go unnoticed beneath the surface. Building upon an extensive career in architectural design, Karyn actively bridges dialog between creative design thinking and the expressive, open-ended mystery of artmaking. It’s a marriage of these two forms of expressive art which drives the work.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Karyn earned a BFA in interior architecture and visual arts from the University of Michigan and continued her studies at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, where she received a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in sculptural ceramics.

Since establishing her art practice in 2018, Karyn has exhibited across California and the western United States, including presentations at the Crocker Art Museum, the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2025, Karyn earned recognition as an Emerging Artist from Ceramics Monthly. She has participated in artist residency programs at Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Colorado) and Penland School of Craft (North Carolina). 

Beyond the gallery and studio, Karyn’s work is held in numerous private and public collections across the U.S. and her work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly, California Homes, and California Home + Design magazines.

If you’re interested in exploring Karyn’s architectural work, click below!