Cottonwood Center for the Arts is proud to announce an exhibit by noted Kansas City artist Karen Steen. Steen — a mixed media artist who works in paper, plywood and Plexiglass — draws from her experience as an educational illustrator and interest in biology to create pieces that suggest the microscopic realms that provide the framework for the world around us.

“I am keenly interested in this place of mystery and potential discovery,” Steen says, “with its diverse parts, interconnections, rhythms, cycles and energy. Ecosystems, symbiotic relationships, microscopic life, plant structures and anatomy inspire my drawings and the shapes I incorporate into collages and relief sculptures.”

Steen received her BA in illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., and her MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She has received numerous awards and artist residencies, and her works belong in the collections of the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and various private collections.

Networks in Nature will open with Minor Threat and A Simpler Time.