About Karen
Up here in Pemberton we mostly notice the mountains around us, but beauty is also at our feet every moment of the day.
My work is about the richness and patterns of nature at every scale and form – at every natural dimension we see, but don’t necessarily notice, every day. I’ve spend a lot of time wandering our valley, always discovering new beauty in the fields, forest, rivers and gardens. Nature’s colours and geometric shapes are incredibly interesting to observe through the different seasons. As a young girl I first learned to draw from A.Y. Jackson, one of the group of seven painters while growing up in Kleinburg, Ontario. I studied at Art Sake Institute in Toronto, a studio/school run by ten of Canadian foremost contemporary painters of the 80’s, continuing my studies in Glass and Metal design at Sheridan College’s School of Craft and Design and on going Fine Art studies at Emily Carr U and CapU.
My entire working life has been spent in the visual arts – as a painter, illustrator, art director, graphic designer, photographer, set decorator, furniture maker, muralist and silversmith.
Some of my greatest artistic development comes through my children and through teaching others to paint. Children are such great observers and love to spend time examining at nature’s most minute details. While I’m very interested in abstract painting and often go through abstract phases, my greatest enjoyment comes from expressing nature’s fundament though art.
Contact me to stop by my studio and see what I have just finished painting.