My painting reflect a personal perspective and response to a landscape or still life work. My landscapes are the essence of a place and not a direct depiction.
I use a combination of water based oils, acrylic and mixed media, on canvas, board and paper. Collage has become an important element, giving a painting an added dimension and texture which brings life to a work. I paint intuitively from the start of a piece with colour and form, letting a painting develop with spontaneity, always trying to create a sense of movement and energy in a painting.
There isn't one particular thing that inspires my paintings. It might be a group of trees spotted on the horizon, a colour, or crops in a field creating patterns in the land. Maybe a simple cup or group of pots on a shelf, a twisted wire on a beach creating a pattern. Or simply a strong connection to a place that gets under my skin. Recent inspiration has come from Scotland, Dartmoor and Dungeness but also influences from trips aboard. All inspiration seeps into my thoughts and manifest into my work. I often starts a piece of work without a strong idea of how it will develop but as colour and mark making is added, that memory starts to unfold on the canvas.
Karen grew up in Kent and completed her degree in printed textiles at Middlesex
Polytechnic in North London. Following her degree she worked for one of the
leading UK textile design studios, Whiston and Wright. Karen designed both
fashion and furnishing fabrics for companies all over the world. Her career as a
designer also lead her into ceramic design for the furniture store Habitat, this
included a full range of tableware.
Having focused solely on her painting since 2004, Karen’s work draws from her
instinctive use of colour, working in acrylic, mixed media and collage either on
canvas, board or paper. Karen starts her paintings with washes of colour, building
layers using mark making and textures whilst retaining some of the initial brush
marks very much responding to her memories and interpreting her reflections in
her own unique way. The subject varies from atmospheric abstract landscapes
and seascapes to still life paintings. Her background as a textile designer has
certainly influenced her style and the way she approaches her work.
Karen is represented by a number of UK galleries and is a selected member and
recently Chair of the Rye Society of Artists. She has had work at numerous art
exhibitions, including the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea and Hampstead as well as
the Society of Women Artists at the Mall Galleries London.
