Based in the foothills of southern California, Karen Hale is a contemporary painter and mixed media artist. While her 2D works primarily incorporate rich layers of acrylic paint, they occasionally include materials like paper, chalk pastels, graphite, and metallic leafing.
There’s a lot of spontaneity to what I do. I work in a lot of different mediums, so I know how one interacts with another both technically as well as aesthetically. If something doesn’t work, I just paint over it and start again!
Over the course of her career, Karen has also worked with textiles, jewelry, collage, and photography. Perhaps it’s her extensive background in these diverse materials that has informed the paintings she creates today, which use unconventional mixed media techniques to their advantage.
For someone as experimental as Karen, whose work has been described as bold, explosive, and dynamic, it’s hard to believe that she’s had no formal training. In a lot of ways, she believes that the absence of a traditional art education has strengthened her work.
I don’t have someone else’s preconceived ideas of how something should be. Because of that, I can make my art without worrying about whether or not something is considered right. I think a lot of people are afraid to try new things – to even start – and I don’t have that fear.
To see more of Karen’s work, check out her website!