Karen O'Leary is a North Carolina, USA-based architect and artist that simplifies the classic map, rendering a clean design as a result of intricate hand-cuts or repetitive black hand-drawn lines.

With maps ranging from New York City to Paris and London, O'Leary erases every information judged unnecessary, be it by cutting out land and water into negative space, or by electing only the barest elements to draw. What remains is the dense and intricately woven web of a very real geography, turned delicate by a meticulous work of reductionism.

I love the possibilities of dramatically changing one's perception of a map by electing what kind of information is shown… O'Leary's minimalist editing of these complex graphics produces very simple yet strikingly beautiful results!