Escape Your reality in exchange for a fantasy.
Style
It is my creative goal to make life interesting, beautiful or fantastic. I explore folklore and surrealism throughout my work in order to show that reality has intricate ties with fantasy.
Bio
Medium
A Florida Artist who loves to tell a good story.
Ceramics,
Printmaking, and Mix-Media.
Karen studied art at
Savannah Art and Design and University of South Florida.
Artist Statement 2023
I try to build a world that is undeniably separate from the one we live in. What fascinates me about any artistic medium is that it can pull the viewer out of a logical and common world and place them within a space that is more alive. When I start to plan new artwork, I want the viewer to forget that they are looking at a painting and instead see an alternate reality, one that mixes painterly qualities with surrealism and fantasy. Why focus on what the artistic medium is when the subject and concept are pulling us deeper and deeper into a world that allows us to escape our reality in exchange for a fantasy? It is my goal in creating artwork is to make life interesting, beautiful or fantastic.
I explore folklore and surrealism throughout my paintings in order to show that reality has intricate ties with fantasy. The real focus of my paintings is often portraiture; it is capturing the emotion of a single instance in a life. For me to create artwork that works, I have to be really interested in the story I am trying to tell. I prefer stories with strong female characters. Often our society leans towards the young male as the hero, but I prefer to illustrate artwork that includes female heroes. Which often we do not see enough of. These old fairytales have been retold for hundreds of thousands of years. The artist can tap into that shadowy archetypal world of storytelling that, as a society, we can still learn from. These stories still resonate with us and entertain us as well!
When I am excited about a story I want to tell, I often do some research to learn how to draw certain elements in the drawing. After working on the design and composition, I think about the environment I want to put my characters in. Currently, I am experimenting with clay, glaze and the many ways you can paint on clay. In the past, I like using acrylic paints with collage, I like to find homemade papers that have interesting texture, which sometimes I paint over. For me, the most important part is pulling the viewer into a world that allows us to escape our reality in exchange for a fantasy.
