Karen is an Australian living on the Gold Coast since 2006. Raised and educated in the UK, Karen studied Art, Business and Economics. She relocated to Cape Town South Africa in the 1980’s and focused on her career in Investments. Later with a young family to raise, she took this opportunity to return to her Art, and attended local Art schools part time in South Africa.

For many years she pursued Art as a hobby. Moving to a full-time focus in recent years now her children have grown up. Her Art is available online through various online sites and forums, and she has participated in various exhibitions and competitions from time to time. Karen is an extremely diverse Artist, working across the compositional spectrum. Her current body of work features southern hemisphere native flowers and fauna. This body of work gives a nod to the emotional connection the artist has with both Australia and South Africa, the native flowers and their unique structure belong to both countries, this connects the artists journey and experiences in an emotive interpretation and a visual dance. Drawing on her personal experiences throughout her time living in these diverse countries and environments, and her experiences through times of change and transformation, she uses her art as a form of preservation and therapy, connecting her past, present and her future.
Native flowers feature in a still life setting or broken down into the shapes found within the flowers in her striking abstract mark making work. The native flowers and their unique structure and shape are so significant, that the process has become a settling experience, this connection is important to the artist, it evokes an emotive response, and the familiar is of great comfort. The Protea has a mythological association with past, present and future, and the flower it is said symbolizes diversity
and courage.

"My current body of work using Native flowers and fauna gives me a sense of belonging to my home here in Australia; it ties my past in a beautiful way to my present and future. These compositions are robust and colourful, yet both sensitive and energetic renditions of the familiar, a combined impressionistic style with abstract ideas, and a focus on the structure of the flowers captured in a painterly and colourful way. Colour for me evokes an emotional response; there is a symbolic strength and passion attached to applying colour to a canvas. I have always been fearless with my use of colour which creates a dialogue of resilience and tenacity. The colours can be both primary and subtle the impact is the same. It is hoped that the viewer can engage on an emotional way with my work, being drawn in initially by the relatable compositions, the loose brush strokes outlining the familiar, immersing themselves in the colours of nature, a powerful expression creating an emotive visual conversation

Karen Goddard - Banksia and Eucalyptus