Karen Lorena Parker is a formal artist in that she believes technique demonstrations expertise. But does technique fall short when there is no message to convey? Karen has a message to convey and she believes that one inspires the other, the right technique is needed to convey the right message. The chicken or the egg..
As the daughter of Nazi and Pinochet dictatorship survivors, much of the fine artists’ conceptual work explores fear of propaganda, injustice, corporate greed and dystopian views of sci-fi and popular culture. Karen uses positive imagery to combat this. Powerful imagery. Images that are ‘Larger Than Life.’
In her attempt at communicating something as intangible as this Karen will often opt for a realistic approach. Her abstract work emerges more in her exploration of emotion and feeling. For example, Karen’s Storm Tree series shows the movement and journey of leaves back to nature, in order to convey this, non-figurative techniques come into play to capture the randomness of this act that is consequently particular to nature.
Karen is so at home in her studio space that it’s hard to ignore the sheer comfort and contentment that bounces from her hand through her brush and on to her canvas. Parker Studios is a massive communal space that hosts the Eastside Culture Crawl in November and the Parker Arts Salon in May along with an array of artists, creators and innovators. But Karen relishes the privacy her studio awards her amidst the buildings’ characterized industrial framework. It allows her to avoid distraction and interruption, it allows her to focus, it allows her to excel. It allows her to take over the world!
I hope someday you do!
Karen will be with us at the Convention Centre next month with a boat load of femmes in tow! Get your tickets here.
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Visit her website here: www.karenlorenaparker.com
Instagram: @bremerpark
Interview by Laura Noonan