Artists

Biography

Karen Greenslade graduated with a BFA from the University of Canterbury in 2016. She had previously graduated with a Teaching Certificate, a BA in Psychology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Education. She travelled widely before living on the West Coast with her partner and their three children for 30 years. She and her partner now live in Christchurch. During her Coast years Karen developed a keen sense of the need for sustainable management of the surrounding natural environment. Since leaving art school she has been working on three main series of paintings; ‘Where the Creek Runs,’ largely influenced by her West Coast years, ‘Layer upon Layer’, which reflects her time living on New Zealand’s east coast, mostly in Canterbury, where she grew up, and ‘Night Estuary’, the most recent, and still developing, body of work. These series employ similar media, techniques and themes. They are expressive paintings on paper using a variety of inks, some handmade, charcoal, pencil and water-based paints. These are mixed media works often mounted on pure silk or linen. They represent themes of fragile, localized natural environments and are often blended with imagery speaking of women’s interests in the textile arts and floral design within a familial, domestic context. They are both unashamedly feminine and feminist works; often statements and metaphorical commentary on the value and also the elevation of women’s status in the world of Fine Arts.