RAiR | 1991-92

Karen Aqua

Illustrator, animator and filmmaker Karen Aqua (1954-2011) was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She earned a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1976. A gifted animator, Karen hand-drew all of the images in her films (“the old-fashioned way”). She married the musician Ken Field, and they collaborated extensively; he composed the music for many of her films, and they did a number of teaching residencies together; they returned to Roswell several times to teach in the schools. She also travelled with Ken’s singing group, the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, performing in a number of venues. 

Her films are witty and energetic and deal with a number of themes, from prehistoric rock art to ritual and the human spirit. In her lifetime Karen made 13 independent animated films, including her last film “Taxonomy” which she started during her RaIR residency in the Fall of 2009. She also directed and animated 22 segments for the children’s television show Sesame Street. In 2005 a program of Karen’s animated films was presented in Iran at the Tehran International Animation Festival. Her work attracted numerous awards, including four Massachusetts Cultural Council grants and four ASIFA-East Animation Awards in New York City. Karen’s work is held in the public collections of, amongst others, the Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico, the Fundacion Valparaiso Collection, Mojacar, Spain and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. One of her most notable films was her next to last one, called Twist of Fate, which is “an abstract view on illness (cancer) visualized in an internal world inside the body, reflecting her battle with cancer.”

 The Anderson Museum has five of Karen’s drawings on display and owns two of her films. 

Roswell Museum and Art Center

Rair exhibition • karen aqua “ground zero/sacred ground” • 1996