Biography

Artist statement

"I am a contemporary figurative artist. Influenced by my former training as a social anthropologist, I treat objects, people and nature as narratives of human experience, history and emotion. My paintings of nature and gardens investigate themes of cultural history, science, memory and belonging, and my portraits are investigations into the human condition and experience.

I approach painting much like a participant observer. We live in a cacophony of visual impressions, sound, smells, movement and thoughts. In my work I am looking for a way to make sense of this chaos; I use painting as a means to stop, take apart, analyse and reassemble what I see and experience."

About

Karen Aarre is a Norwegian/British visual artist, born in London in 1972. She is currently living and working in Oslo, Norway.

She has studied at Faculdade das Belas Artes (Faculty of Visual Arts), University of Lisbon, Portugal, and at De Vrije Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten (The Free Academy of Visual Arts), the Hague, the Netherlands. She also holds a doctorate (DPhil) in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, UK.

She is a member of NBK, LNM, BOA

Her work is part of several collections, including:

Universitetet i Oslos kunstsamling / Naturhistorisk Museum

Coleccao Fundacao Dom Luis 1

Coleccao Câmera de Cascais

Rikshospitalet, Oslo

Dronning Sonjas KunstStall