Karen Birkin’s work entwines personal identity, nature, and ancestral memory into a quiet, contemplative force. Unexpected significances and meanings emerge from flowers wilting in vases and spiders hiding in corners; animated by her thoughts, by the ideas of Bachelard and others and her experience of living in this world as an artist; as a woman; as a mother.
Her intimate paintings explore motherhood, transformation, and the delicate threads that bind us to each other and where we live. Birkin captures “intimate immensity”—a vastness within the small—inviting us into a world of reflection, reverie, and soulful connection.

EDUCATION -

Courtauld Institute BA History of Art 1996,

1996-2004 Film production/scriptwriting Tartan Films.

2001 - 2005 Restoration of early Netherlandish paintings for Patrick Corbett studio Beaufort street.  Evening classes with David Cranswick and Stephane Rene in old master painting and icon painting.

2006-2008 BA in Fine art at Coleg Menai, unfinished due to becoming a mother.

October 2021, Bangor University, Postgraduate certificate in Fine art with distinction.

2022 Turps correspondence course.

Since 2016 exhibited regularly and had solo exhibitions with Oriel Plas Glen y Weddw in north Wales and The Table Gallery in Hay on Wye. Selected for Wells Cathedral exhibition in 2022 and COLAB body and place residency at owl pen manor in 2023, Royal Academy Summer exhibition in 2024 and chosen to be part of Docent’s new series “sources of self”.

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