KAREN HALPERN

KAREN HALPERN'S 40 YEAR career as a professional artist is defined by its consistent exhibition record and history of award recognition.  She established herself early as an Art Instructor at Indiana State University. Karen is noted for her Painting Workshops, which she has conducted in scenic locations across the United States. Some of those places include Taos and Santa Fe, NM, Cape Cod, MA, Northern Michigan (Petoskey, Charlevoix, Beaver Island). Originally from New York, this noted Michigan artist currently  teaches Watercolor Painting, Oil and Acrylic Painting, and Drawing, in several Fine Arts Programs in  Michigan, and has been a popular Teacher,  Lecturer and Juror in  communities throughout the East and Midwest.   
       

Her work is included in both corporate and private collections in the US and abroad. Most recently her paintings have  been represented by the Nomad Gallery, Southfield MI, Synchronicity Gallery, Glen Arbor, MI, Orchard Lake Framing and Gallery, Orchard Lake/ Keego Harbor, MI. Many  Awards of Recognition  highlight her  participation in National and Regional Exhibitions and 18 Solo Shows.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Through the act of painting, I seek to capture the “essence”, or “soul” of my subject. Whether working in oils, acrylics, watercolor, or mixed-media, my goal is to capture my personal response to either an idea or image that consumes me for a period of time, or “calls out” to me, needing to be interpreted onto paper or canvas, to be given a visible “voice”.


I find myself searching for the right form for its expression, and trying to pin down, in my own mind, just what it is that I need to say about the subject. What is essential? What do I feel? What qualities does the subject have that define it? How can I, first of all, express it through line, shapes, color, texture, and a point of view that captures the subject, and can convey it to the world? At this point, I am really talking to myself in my inner thoughts, because I have this insistent need to identify for myself just what is this about, this “thing” that must be drawn and painted. The painting process, for me, is the way I find to get to the heart of what’s compelling about the subject to me, and describe it for myself....to pin it down. Thereby, to convey its essence to the viewer. 

I have been a working artist since the age of 15. Early instruction, classroom research, and library excursions, led to my discovery of Cubist and Expressionist painters, with their exciting way of creating forceful depictions of reality, which they completely reshuffled, and seemed to spew onto canvas with boldness, imagination, and conviction. Their daring approach continues to influence me.

My working process is about letting the idea and imagery lead me from the painting’s inception. I recognize that with each new project, there is a particular way that  it needs to be expressed, that  is integral to its nature. I need to find the place within me that connects, in  a way that I share one-ness with the inspiration, creating the image that evolves. There is an  inevitability about how each painting finds its way onto a canvas or page.  Through the kind of “personal dialogue” in which the painting and I engage, there comes to fruition a necessary conclusion. This is the final form that the painting takes on.