karen mcconnell - artist
curriculum vitae
artist's statement
Sometimes our minds hold visions and dreams that we do not fully understand and yet, for an artist, there is the compulsion to express them...to explore their substance, and to share them. Self-taught, this has involved a process of experimentation continuing from the earliest days to the present.
Every artist, I believe, brings to the easel a rich palette of all life experience ~ the colours of their own emotions, the brush of their talent, and the many hues of joy and pathos. Realities are filtered through a unique and prismatic vision, finding a voice which resonates in the heart of at least one other. And so, we obediently follow the Muse to the unknown ~ to grow, to bloom again, to infuse the work with freshness and vitality.
In the beginning, my work was almost always representational and figurative. The realism of the early watercolours gave way later to other media and more stylised work depicting creatures and places which seem to belong to a time other than the present. Born in my imagination, they reflect many of my own interests and passions: music, literature, theatre, and dance.
As my life changes, so does the work. It cannot be otherwise. In whichever direction the work moves, it is always my hope that it will touch and uplift and ignite something in the observer. This, to me, is where the work finds its completion and its purpose. And this is why I am an artist.
awards
2001 - Bronze Award: 'Best Surrealistic or Abstract Painting ~ Any Medium'
First Annual Adjudicated Show of the Canadian Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society,
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
1999 - 8th Place Award
Annual International Exhibition of Miniatures, ParkLane Gallery, Kirkland, Washington
1998 - 2nd Place ~ International Category
Annual International Exhibition ~ Miniature Painters, Gravers & Sculptors Society of Washington, D.C.
1998 - 3rd Place: Mixed Media Category
Annual Miniatures Exhibition ~ Nevada Artists Association, Carson City, Nevada
1995 - 2nd Place: Drawing Category
Annual Exhibition of Miniature Art ~ DelBello Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
Sometimes our minds hold visions and dreams that we do not fully understand and yet, for an artist, there is the compulsion to express them...to explore their substance, and to share them. Self-taught, this has involved a process of experimentation continuing from the earliest days to the present.
Every artist, I believe, brings to the easel a rich palette of all life experience ~ the colours of their own emotions, the brush of their talent, and the many hues of joy and pathos. Realities are filtered through a unique and prismatic vision, finding a voice which resonates in the heart of at least one other. And so, we obediently follow the Muse to the unknown ~ to grow, to bloom again, to infuse the work with freshness and vitality.
In the beginning, my work was almost always representational and figurative. The realism of the early watercolours gave way later to other media and more stylised work depicting creatures and places which seem to belong to a time other than the present. Born in my imagination, they reflect many of my own interests and passions: music, literature, theatre, and dance.
As my life changes, so does the work. It cannot be otherwise. In whichever direction the work moves, it is always my hope that it will touch and uplift and ignite something in the observer. This, to me, is where the work finds its completion and its purpose. And this is why I am an artist.
awards
2001 - Bronze Award: 'Best Surrealistic or Abstract Painting ~ Any Medium'
First Annual Adjudicated Show of the Canadian Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society,
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
1999 - 8th Place Award
Annual International Exhibition of Miniatures, ParkLane Gallery, Kirkland, Washington
1998 - 2nd Place ~ International Category
Annual International Exhibition ~ Miniature Painters, Gravers & Sculptors Society of Washington, D.C.
1998 - 3rd Place: Mixed Media Category
Annual Miniatures Exhibition ~ Nevada Artists Association, Carson City, Nevada
1995 - 2nd Place: Drawing Category
Annual Exhibition of Miniature Art ~ DelBello Gallery, Toronto, Ontario