Flower market, Lourmarin Painting

British painter Karen Griffiths lives in the French Alps, with her studio overlooking the alpine town of Morzine. Since leaving university, Brighton became home for 9 years painting in her beachfront studio, until moving to France 20 years ago. As soon as she was old enough, she took to the road, heading for Asia, with road trips in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and also India, Morocco and China. She brought back sketches, faces in notebooks, a few words and phrases, sometimes scraps of fabric and texts in a foreign language, as well as photographs… intimate moments to inspire her creations. Karen Griffiths honed her artistic technique at the University of Central Lancashire. She filled sketchbooks and shared a studio on the beach in Brighton with other artists. She then exhibited at London galleries and art fairs. Whether faces or landscapes, her works always suggest an emotion or an intimate experience. “Sometimes, especially on the smaller canvases, I glue patterned paper in the background before I start painting. It’s so different without a blank canvas, and I leave a glimpse of the pattern. My smaller canvases are like a page in a sketchbook, and that’s the heart of my paintings”. Each work integrates words from poems, thoughts, quotations or feelings, a “patchwork” effect inspired by travels and tangled impressions… “I love the fine lines and doodles intertwined on the canvas. And then I always find a relevant title for each work, it can provoke a feeling or reveal something”.