About Karen

Karen McEndoo is an abstract artist based in Cornwall, working in oils and acrylics with an expressive, gestural approach. Her practice draws inspiration from the dramatic Cornish landscape and the legacy of the St Ives modernists, whilst also reflecting the vivid colours and light of Central Africa, where she spent her formative years.

 

Originally trained as an illustrator, McEndoo has developed a distinctive abstract language over fifteen years of professional practice. Her work explores the intersection of memory, place and emotional response through bold mark-making and considered colour relationships.

McEndoo is a full member of the Penwith Gallery and a member of the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. She has exhibited extensively across southern England, with her work held in private collections nationally and internationally.

Working Methods

'Many artists find the idea of a blank canvas daunting and I am no exception. My first task is to break the whiteness by putting down a base colour which, because of the nature of my work, shines through and becomes an intrinsic part, uniting the painting as a whole.
It is rare that I sketch or plan the piece, the antithesis of what I was taught, preferring instead to allow the work to develop its own language.

Like many artists I do suffer with painters block and find that painting several different pieces at the same time helps, using the same palette for each. Colour is everything to me and I spend a good deal of time mixing the hues until I have arrived at a coherent range of colours; something I find a genuine pleasure. The rest is generally, albeit an oxymoron, ordered chaos.
Whilst working it is important for me to disengage the thinking brain and rely on instinct, this can often take a while to achieve. The act of placing paint onto any surface is rich in possibilities but every bit as fraught with challenges and frustration.
Herein lies the crux of the exciting nature of painting, the never knowing what will arrive'

 Karen McEndoo

 

Karen lives in Tregony on the Roseland Peninsular in Cornwall UK