Karen Bagayawa
Vancouver, British Columbia
Mixed Media Artist | Abstraction | Woven Linen | Colour | Surface
Message
A Visual Journey of Colour and Surface
Originally from Cambridge, Ontario, Karen Bagayawa graduated with her B.F.A from Queen’s University in 1998. Her interest in traveling took her to Northern Japan to teach Kindergarten. During her five year stay, she participated in group exhibitions at The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Sacramento Fine Arts Center, New York’s Limner Gallery and had solo exhibitions at Gallery La Vie in Morioka. In 2004, she returned to Canada and enrolled in the Advanced Textile Arts Certificate Program at Capilano College. Upon graduating, she participated in group exhibitions at Vancouver’s Jacana Contemporary Art Gallery, The Craft House - Granville Island and had her first solo exhibition in Canada at The Port Moody Art Center in 2005. Karen has been working on her original cracked fabric or ‘skins’ for over twenty years and her work belongs in collections throughout Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Luxembourg, Australia, Shanghai, France and Italy. In 2011, she was awarded the Eastside Culture Crawl Commission where seven paintings were created for the Gold Sponsors of the popular Eastside Culture Crawl in Vancouver. Karen currently resides in Coquitlam with her husband Stephen and their three children - Hanna, Jacob and Sienna, her two cats - Ash and Jasper where she is strongly influenced by her natural surroundings. She is currently represented by The UKAMA Contemporary Art Gallery on Granville Island and ART JUNCTION Art Gallery and Framing Studio in Whistler, British Columbia.
Statement
"Painting has always served as an expressive medium for me, allowing me to convey strong emotions at any moment in time, onto surface. Within painting, I am interested in colour, tactile surfaces and patterns inspired by nature and how paint behaves on a given surface. I have always been fascinated by tactile surfaces. I experimented with cheesecloth, woven linen and tile grout to create tactile surfaces and soon discovered the 'cracked' surface. Cracking tile grout on woven fabric, I build a sensual surface texture. If the viewer cannot physically touch the work, they can imaginatively feel the surface. I have a sensitivity to colour, layering colour washes over and over again.
I have been working with my process for over twenty years and the whole process of weaving and painting is a very emotional and spiritual experience for me. In manipulating the surface, I hope to engage the viewer and transfer an energy from the making itself into a tangible new form of excitement and heightened expressive sensation."
"The act of creating beautiful things is the way of bringing good into this world. Infused with optimism, it says simply: life is worthwhile. The effort to create enduring beauty is not dependent on style but truth".
-ALAN MOORE-