Design and Art Australia Online

Karen Atkins was born at Box Hill, Victoria, in 1962 and grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne where her time was devoted to painting and riding horses. School holidays spent on her uncle’s wheat and sheep farm at Boundary Bend on the Murray River fostered her love of the land and the solitude of its wide spaces.

Having completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Monash University and her Diploma of Education at the Hawthorn Institute of Education in Melbourne, she moved to north-western Victoria in 1986. There she married a farmer and shared the regular calendar chores associated with life on a sheep and wheat farm including droving, fencing and working as a shearer’s 'rouseabout’.

During the ten years spent on the land she learned to appreciate Australia’s interior: the huge skies, flat landscape and elegant sparseness. Nonetheless, following the death of her husband in a farming accident, she moved to Sydney in 1996 and began painting full-time. The undulating topography awakened a new interest in vistas, the extensive harbour and its many inlets. Atkins’ Sydney home, a stone and brick cottage in Crows Nest built for quarrymen in 1890, with its views from the studio to the garden and harbour beyond, provided an inspiring space for her work.

Upon arriving in Sydney, Atkins accepted a number of commissions for community art murals – at McMahon’s Point Community Centre, Chatswood Mall in Victoria Street, and Northbridge Public School – all of which were completed between 1996 and 2006. In 2007 she received her most significant public art commission, Bears Party (Grasmere Reserve, Cremorne), Atkins’ only mosaic-based public art piece to date. She has also participated in temporary events designed to bring art to a wider public, such as 'Art on the Boardwalk’, an annual event sponsored by North Sydney Council.

In March 1997 Atkins joined the Royal Art Society (RAS) as an exhibiting member. The RAS, established in 1880, offers an active program for members, including approximately eight annual group exhibitions. Atkins was elevated to an Associate (ARAS) in 1999 and has received many awards from the Society. In 2000 she received a Special Commendation at Crows Nest Club Art Prize.

In 2005 she was employed by St Lucy’s, Wahroonga, a school for children with special needs, to assist with the development of St Lucy’s at Play , a book on the children’s art. In 2006 the school invited her back as artist-in-residence, a position designed to encourage children to explore the world through play and creative expression, and that energised as an artist. She maintained an association with St Lucy’s via engagement with the children’s creative activities, leading to annual exhibitions of the children’s art which serve as fundraisers for the school’s Creative Arts Centre.

It is as a textile designer that Atkins has also forged an association with fashion designer Sophia Nguyen and her company SARISSA. Atkins has an additional role as media agent for the company – she wears SARISSA clothes at public events.

Atkins believes “people respond to the spirit of my paintings” which are informed by her cultural upbringing and travels. She states: “My paintings are a meandering through personal experience and recollections. They celebrate beauty and wonder of everyday events. I use texture and a colour-drenched palette to tell stories and convey heartfelt emotions that I hope engage viewers and connect them to universal themes and feelings” (Atkins pers. comm. 2008). Such ideas also informed her December 2008 exhibition, 'Souvenirs’, in which she explored the links between collectable items, relocation, memory and globalisation through still life, interior and figure compositions.

By 2008, Atkins had participated in over one-hundred group and seventeen solo exhibitions – many at Salmon Galleries in McMahon’s Point, Sydney. Her work is held in private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA.

Writers:

Biancardi, Dominic
De Lorenzo, Dr Catherine

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2009