Visions of a Cardboard World. Karen Garrett, a post-modern sculptor and painter combining abstraction and realism, Karen Garrett is unusual because she sculpts with cardboard to create complex structure and is widely credited for introducing cardboard as an accepted medium in installation art. (Reference The Menil Collection conservatory’s study of Garret’s medium). Some of her installations are room size and utilize cardboard and resin over armature forms of steel and wood to give the impressions of that which is organic and freestanding and figurative.