Artist Statement

Karen Meadows has a rich history in the art world. She was born in Northern California and raised by an artistic mother who allowed creativity to bloom and encouraged art making from a young age. She was surrounded by nature spending hours roaming the hills on her horse. The natural world has been a strong influence in her art making. Karen received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts, and upon graduation was accepted into the Lausanne Biennale. Her 10’ x 14’ fiber wall piece was selected to travel to various museums across Europe. Her work is in collections in the U.S. and Europe. “My paintings evolve from intuition and chance.” Since that time, I have discovered my love of dying paper, collage, and encaustic. My art allows the viewer to experience color, texture, movement and surprise. Each painting holds within it a personal metaphor of my quest for personal understanding and growth. During my last artist residency in Lecce Italy, I discovered the joy of dying papers with diluted acrylic paint. This revelation came as I intentionally left my art supplies at home. Picking up all sorts of papers and dipping them in paint harkened back to my textile days of dying yarn for my clothing business and large wall hangings. I can see a thread running through all my creations. Whether it’s a brush loaded with paint or papers I have dyed, I am intrigued by what happens and continually ask “What if?” I start with a white canvas or panel, start adding paper of differing transparencies, edit with paint, add lines, shapes and form until I am satisfied, the work speaks to me, it tells a story. >Working in abstraction gives me the opportunity to walk into my studio each day and be surprised by what happened the day before, always discovering new ways to engage myself and my viewers.