Karen Strang

“Recognised for her large-scale punchy and hard-hitting oil paintings, Strang was described in a recent review as “a superb draughtsman” (Clare Henry, Artlyst, 5 March 2018).

A Scottish-Polish heritage defines the visual language expressed in paint by Karen Strang. Juxtaposing bright coloured motifs of European folklore with muted hues of the landscape, Strang has been equally inspired by travels through Central Europe and working plein air in Scotland. 

A graduate of Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art, she was encouraged by her professor Alexander Moffat to consider the political as well as the visceral aspects of painting. After receiving the Newbery Medal and the Sir William Gillies Travelling Scholarship amongst other awards, further study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw during a tumultuous political period in the mid 1980s led Strang to working in installation and performance after seeing Tadeusz Kantor. 

Returning to painting in recent years, but steeped in all these influences, Strang explores expressive figuration outlining the human condition whilst utilising aspects of archetypes found in mythology and close observation of natural form.