THE PUSH AND PULL

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Australian artist Karen M. Andersen works from her home studio on the Fraser Coast in southeast Queensland. Her childhood was also spent growing up here, in a seemingly eternal summer, exploring the beach and the bush, watching storms come and go in the evening sky with her father (a nature lover at heart). University studies in biology – together with days spent at the beach and on Fraser Island with her partner and children – have seen Karen develop a deep affection for the Queensland coast, especially for the sea and the Great Barrier Reef, rich in its cacophony of creatures with their unique forms, vibrant colours, and rhythmic movements. As a sufferer of depression and anxiety, Karen is very passionate about helping to erase the stigma around mental illness by sharing her story through her art. It is these collective life experiences which form the inspiration behind Karen’s artwork.Karen has a self-described unrelenting obsession with colour which weaves its way through her abstract paintings. Flamboyant, vivid hues and sorbet tones play harmoniously against each other, laid down in broad sweeping planes of luminous colour contrasted by expressive mark-making. The resulting works are alive with character, rich in emotion, and imbued with meaning. A love for experimentation and an incessant need to always be creating ensures that Karen’s work is always fresh and exciting. Most times she prefers to paint abstractly in acrylic paint on canvas, wood or paper, while other times she is drawn to create mixed media works in pastel, ink, pencil and paint. Whatever the medium, Karen's artworks always come from a place of passion for the work's subject matter and from a pure love of the artistic process.