Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Appleton.
Karen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a self-taught artist. I was adopted as an infant and grew up in a small town in Alabama. My parents were not artistically inclined but were very supportive of my creative spirit and all my crazy craft projects. However it was not until my late twenties that I started taking art and painting seriously. Reading book after book on artists, art history, and art instruction, I tried painting with everything; watercolor, pastels, acrylic, gouache… then I tried oils, fell in love and never went back! I initially painted in thin, blended layers and more realistic than I do now. I blame a lucky encounter with a Vincent Van Gogh painting in Las Vegas on radically changing my ideas on how I wanted to paint. From that moment on, I experimented with every brush, medium, surface, color combination I could, to try and figure out how that painting was so alive! It was a portrait of a woman and you could literally feel her soul. It wasn’t just a painting but a presence you felt. I chase that feeling in every painting, knowing I’ll never catch it but happy to be in the game.
We’d love to hear more about your art.
I paint portrait and still life paintings in oil, sized from 5 inches squared to 7 feet, and I hope to go much larger. My goal is pretty simple, I want to bring beauty and light to someone’s life with my art, and I would absolutely love for my artwork to somehow inspire a feeling of connection to the world around us and to each other.
How or where can people see your work?
I am active on Instagram, posting in-progress photos of paintings I’m working on. I am very fortunate to sell right off Instagram and my website. I also work by commission for collectors who have seen my paintings in person at my home studio, in exhibits, or online. I currently have paintings available at Skidmore Contemporary Art, a gallery in Santa Monica, California, and a local gallery in Atlanta, Buckhead Art & Co., located in the Buckhead shopping district.
We often hear from artists that being an artist can be lonely. Any advice for those looking to connect with other artists?
Gallery openings or art events are usually filled with other artists for those who can mingle easily. Social media, especially Instagram, is enormously helpful in finding other artists you can connect with. But ultimately, I think it’s an occupation or activity that requires you to spend most of your free time working alone on your art unless you can support yourself solely through your artwork and have regular working hours. I think you have to absolutely 100 percent love creating so much that you’re okay being alone.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.karenappleton.com
- Phone: 224-554-9401
- Email: karenappletonart@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/karenappletonart
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