Artists Statement

Karen Heffernan is a retired high school Visual Arts teacher, who worked passionately with students for 36 years. Schools taught at were Wollongong High, Keira High, Lake Illawarra High, Monaro High, Illawarra Sports High and Dapto High retiring as a Head teacher of CAPA.

Since 2021 she has pursued her passion for creativity, focusing upon the practice of painting. Her artmaking is a unification of the natural world often intertwined with historical references. The historical practice taught in schools has informed and inspired her interest in the mastery of painting skills displayed across a range of genres. Having travelling internationally and witnessed some of the most notable masters of painting, her artmaking references the desire for perfection of form through light and colour. There is a narrative in the compositions created. The local beach environment offers a wealth of atmospheric conditions which are digitally documented, providing inspiration for her paintings. The highly representational forms take the audience on a journey between historical and contemporary times. Acrylic paint on wooden panels enables textural surfaces to play a significant part in the evocative, highly varnished resolved artworks.