Artist opens studio in market hall

Karen Duffy, whose work is inspired by her years living in France and beside the British coast, specialises in seascapes and an Impressionist style of painting.

Karen, originally from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, was born into a family of artists. She has painted most of her life, but didn’t pick up the artist’s brush to paint professionally until five years ago.

For 17 years she ran her own bespoke picture framing business in Paris, but the lure of art always beckoned and she spent a lot of time visiting Claude Monet’s garden and house in Giverny.

“These visits and the beautiful city of Paris rekindled my passion to paint and produce art,” she said.

On returning to the UK she moved to the coast, firstly to Kent and then to Tynemouth, in Tyne and Wear, where she was drawn to the powerful scenery and developed a strong interest in seascapes.

“I spent hours watching the sea and vast skies in all the changing weather and light conditions,” she said.

Since the age of 16 Karen had wanted to study fine art. From 2009 to 2012 she took herself off to Northumbria University to study a fine art degree and shortly after started painting professionally.

Karen uses a semi-abstract style of painting and combines her love of colour and lavish texture in most of her paintings, often working the canvas with the strokes, dabs and sweeps of a palette knife.

“I like my paintings to have a quirky original touch and I look to add texture and small areas of detail, combined with bright contrasting colour,” she said.

Karen was twice winner of the Newcastle Building Society Art Competition, in 2010 and 2011, which was judged through votes cast by members of the public.

Karen, who moved to Shrewsbury in August last year, now also specialises in animal paintings, including dog portraiture commissions which have been proving popular, and she teaches painting techniques one-to- one and in small groups.