Karen Topp

Karen’s work focuses primarily on capturing fleeting moments of beauty in everyday life, giving them permanence through the medium of paint: a landscape or building observed when no-one else is around, or the demeanour of a person absorbed in mundane activity.

Process, colour and the quality of paint are her main drivers, and she has a fascination for the tension between darkness and light, flatness and texture, realism and abstraction. Starting from cropped images, oil pastel studies and abundant colour research, she favours acrylic paint, using a wide range of brush marks and textures. She occasionally incorporates other media such as collage or charcoal.

Karen is a self-taught artist who has refined her skills through various courses in institutions such as Central St Martins and the City Lit, London, UK, completing the Advanced Year of the Figure & Portrait there in 2022.

State of Flux, The Brick Lane Gallery, London 2025
Artsdepot Winter showcase, London, 2023-24
FLUID, Espacio Gallery, London, 2023
Gaia, Camden Image Gallery, London, 2023
What is Art, Boomer Gallery, London, 2023
Winter Exhibition, The Wood Norton, Cotswolds, UK, 2022-23
The Figure Reframed, City Lit, London, 2022
Finding the Light, Camden Image Gallery, London, 2021