ABOUT

Karen Numme creates disorienting, layered worlds where light fractures, reflections collide, and nothing stays still.

Trained in architecture and landscape design at Harvard, the University of New Mexico, and Parsons/NYU, Numme learned to see space as something constructed — built from angles, thresholds, and shifting perspectives. Her earlier work used metal, plexiglass, and spray paint to break apart light and language, scattering words and particles across monochromatic surfaces. Those pieces have been shown in museums and galleries across the United States.

She now works in photography, using the iPhone to build composites and reflections that refuse to resolve into a single image. Numme is drawn to the moment when the eye can’tquite settle — when a scene feels at once familiar and foreign. Her images ask viewers to step into that instability, lean into the disorder, and find their own way through.

Born in the Bronx, Numme has lived in New York, Boston, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles — cities that shaped how she sees through glass, steel, and constant motion.