Artist Statement
"Everything is a mystery, ourselves, and all things both simple and humble." Morandi.
As an artist I think about space and the relationship I have with it and the spider paintings allow me to articulate that as well as being able to play with their rich mythology. They symbolise the duality I have of being a mother and being an artist. For an arachnophobic, the space between them and the spider shrinks as they have an unrealistic sense of danger. Warped psychological space, infinite space, uncertainty, endless movement and the transience of all things are also ideas that interest me in my work.
In this way my practice has begun to be concerned with the wild and our emotional relationship with it. My painting questions nature contained in our architectural spaces, the spiders living in the corners of our rooms, often swept away or squashed. The pig in the hovel, the dog on the sofa in our home. I am interested in our relationships with these creatures, how we interact with them or think about them in literature, poetry, film.
Endless movement, entropy and the transience of things is something I think about more and more as I get older, my children grow up and I change. I have been working on a series of paintings based on photos I found in Plas Bodfa, an installation space that was once a care home. I am fascinated by the people in the photos, their physical and mental relationship with the space around them. In the paintings I am playing with psychological space as well as liminal space and the idea of portals. The archway is a recurrent theme and references the archways in Goya’s dark paintings.
I work mostly in oil paint on different surfaces, aluminium, panel, mdf, glass, collage, paper.
Instagram = birkinkaren
CV
BA art history at Courtauld Institue, London
Worked in film production and distribution and then changed career and worked as a restorer of 15th and 16th century Dutch paintings.
Completed two years of a BA in fine art at Coleg Menai in Gwynedd but was unable to complete due to starting a family..
Currently doing an MA in Fine art at Coleg Menai.
Exhibitons
Feb 2016. Solo exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd,
May 2016, Joint exhibition with Max Blonde and Olivia Blonde, Corke gallery, Liverpool
July 2016, Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
July 2017, Joint exhibition with Christina Pierce, The table gallery, Hay on Wye, Herefordshire
July 2017, Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
April 2018, Joint exhibition with Sophie Windham,The table gallery, Hay on Wye, Herefordshire
July 2018, Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
July 2019, Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
Summer 2020 online mentorship with Ruprecht von Kaufman
August 2020 Installation at Plas Bodfa as part of Unus Multorum exhibition, Anglesey Gwynedd.
27th November -18th December 2021 Solo Exhibition at The Table Galley, Hay on Wye, Herefordshire
July 2022 Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral, Somerset.
July 2022 Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
July 2022 Summer exhibition, Chelsea Arts Club, London
Autumn 2022- Summer 2023 Turps Banana online mentorship
June 2023 Colab “Body and place residency”
July 2023 Summer exhibition, Oriel Plas Glen y weddw, Llanbedrog, Gwynedd
July 2023 Summer exhibition, Chelsea Arts Club, London
November 2023, Solo Exhibition at The Table Gallery, Hay on Wye, Herefordshire.