Terrence Karpowicz was born in 1948 in Cleveland, Ohio and received a B.A. in fine arts from Albion College, Michigan in 1970. Karpowicz moved to New York City to pursue his career as an artist. Through various jobs, including bartending at Max’s Kansas City and studio manager of Larry Poons, Karpowicz maintained a studio and continued to paint. In 1972, he assisted with an installation of sculpture exhibition by Mark di Suvero which inspired him to sculpture; the world of materials and labor.
In 1973 he enrolled at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in the graduate program in Sculpture. After a distinguished graduate study that included several exhibitions (Frank Logan Medal and Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago) Karpowicz was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship to the United Kingdom, serving as Scholar to the Wind and Watermill Section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, to study the technical and mechanical aspects of the country’s medieval wind and watermills.
Upon completing his fellowship Karpowicz moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1976 to establish a sculpture studio and continue his career. Since then, he has received two National Endowment for the Arts awards, four grants from the Illinois Arts Council, The Newhouse Award, and numerous public and private commissions. He has exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe and in the Soviet Union. Karpowicz has received seven commissions for public sculpture from the State of Illinois and his work is held in collections of the City of Chicago, Oklahoma City, and the U.S. General Services Administration.

While an art student in the 1970’s, Terrence Karpowicz was influenced by the theories and practices of Minimalism and Conceptualism which dominated the contemporary art at the time.

In 1975, he was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes scholarship to the United Kingdom to serve as apprentice to the sole millwright for the government’s Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. There he learned the ancient techniques and craftsmanship of watermill and windmill construction and preservation. As a result of these influences and experiences, Karpowicz’s aesthetic is rooted in craftsmanship while being informed by the sublime nature of minimal forms and the layering of history and ideas.

Terrence Karpowicz continues to practice the craft of wood-working and joinery and is especially drawn to the interactions of wind, water, sunlight, and gravity on natural materials. His work is defined by the tension at the point of contact, or joint, and the act of creating this tension. By joining irregular, organic materials (such as wood limbs and granite shards) to machine-tooled geometric shapes of steel, he creates sculpture with actual or implied kinetic relationships among the elements and between the sculpture and its environment.
The ways in which disparate materials interact with each other define the artist’s life and his relationship with the world. Oak and granite nesting in congruent harmony, stainless steel orbs spinning within walnut ellipses, granite shards twisting against armatures of steel - these elements are held together through his commitment to materials, history and craftsmanship.

During this time of COVID-19 Pandemic and Quarantine, Karpowicz remains ever optimistic about the future.