Karen Pearce is an Aberystwyth based painter and has exhibited widely in Wales and England since 1987. She undertook formal art training at Aberystwyth University, graduating in 1998 with a BA (1st class hons) followed by an MA in Fine Art in 2003.
She works for exhibitions and private commissions in her studio above Aberystwyth town and shares her painting skills as a tutor for Aberystwyth Arts Centre and various community art groups.
“A common thread that runs through my work is a focus on the light and its effect on the landscape. I often paint “en plein air“ for the pleasure of it, because a particular place inspires me, and as a starting point for larger studio canvasses in acrylic.”
Other paintings are developed with different media – watercolour or gouache, pastels, ink or acrylic, combined with various textures and surfaces. All celebrate a sense of place, a love of the elements, and an abiding fascination with the expressive potential of paint. She is forever interested in how landscape links to experience- the associations we hold with certain places, or moods that are evoked with light and atmospheric conditions. She tries to convey through paint the sensation of being there.