Featured Artist: Karen Golmer

This quarter’s featured artist is Karen Golmer.

Karen’s primary medium is watercolor. Her work features the bold colors more typical of acrylic painting, and she paints mainly with wet paint on wet paper, noting that unlike acrylic painters, she “can achieve a transparent and rich pure or blended hue” with watercolor. Karen also enjoys drawing and sketching with ink.

Karen, who has a background in chemistry and business, discovered her life's path by blending practicality with passion. Guided by her parents to pursue a stable career, she earned a two-year technical degree, eventually earning an MBA and becoming a chemist. However, the world of creative arts continued to fascinate her.

Her interest in art was rekindled when her son showed talent, prompting Karen to pick up the pencil and paintbrush again. After working as a full-time artist for several years, the corporate world lured her back, and she spent 15 years climbing the corporate ladder, became involved with a nonprofit, and went to work for a major university. She still painted on the weekends, and her travels provided a wealth of photographic inspiration for her art.

Karen has since retired from MIT and rededicated herself to painting full-time, with occasional consulting on technological innovation. She finds joy in balancing her art with her professional skills, believing that this balance and the freedom to choose her path keep her work fresh and bold.

For Karen, painting is therapeutic—"like taking a restful nap." It’s a space where she can leave the world's stresses and enter a space that is her own. If left undisturbed, she says, she can create a new piece of art that did not exist hours before.

Karen draws inspiration from the colors and contrasts in any scene. “I think all artists see a view differently than others, literally see the light and dark and complimentary colors drawing focus … a painting in waiting,” she said.

She enjoys painting snapshots, especially of everyday life. Her work includes people, places, vegetables, cows—even the dishes in her dishwasher. She does do limited commissioned work but finds them to be more limiting.

Karen has studied with Ken Hosmer, Paul Jackson, Ed Fenendael and Philomene Bennett. You can view her work in galleries and collections around the world. In Kansas City, her paintings can be found at Buttonwood Art Space and other temporary exhibits. Visit www.karengolmer.com for more of Karen's portfolio.