Karen Mason
www.karenmason-artist.comwww.instagram.com/karenmasonartist
An innovator and life-long experimenter, Karen Mason began exploring painting at MSU and later at The Art Center and California College of Art. Such studies provided a foundation to capture the visual beauty of nature scenes, but it wasn’t until later when Karen received private instruction from well-known abstract, watercolor, and plein air artists that she pushed the boundaries of what is possible. Under the direction of Jamie Brunson, Susan Cornelis, and Tom Soltesz, Karen studied the properties of a range of paint and surface materials and developed a strong working understanding of the available tools. That opened things up in a big way.
Equipped and free to explore, Karen developed a unique style utilizing layers on layers of oil, ink, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, and resin over textured surfaces. In this way, she captures the mood of birds and botanicals in her paintings, which have an incredibly unique depth and surface reminiscent of encaustic. Having traveled extensively to Japan while working in the automotive industry for many years and regularly visiting family in Italy, Karen is heavily influenced by her exposure to Asian and Italian cultures as evident in her Renaissance Wabi Sabi style paintings.
Karen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and began exhibiting paintings in local solo and semi-solo shows 15 years ago. Around this time, she built two garden studios in her backyard, as to help provide the needed space to explore and also surround herself with nature.
Karen has maintained a regular cadence of painting and exhibiting activity while also pursuing a career in high technology over this period, but recently made the move to shift to a full-time artist. As Vice President of a healthcare technology company, she led a large UX Researcher team for eight years that helped inform future product design based end-user needs. After a successful career leading such innovation and related initiatives at Nissan, Levi, Visa, Oral-B, AAA, Karen left the high-tech and product/service industries to pursue her fine art painting career full-time. She now paints every day in her garden studio, actively applying what she has learned about innovation and experimentation in creating beautifully unique paintings.
Artist's Statement
I express a unique contemporary flair in my botanical tree and floral paintings through the combination of bold lines, vibrant texture, and luminous atmosphere. The influence of my Italian heritage and immersion into Asian culture are evident in my resin paintings, that balance nature’s splendor and imperfection in a Renaissance Wabi Sabi style. I achieve a unique translucent atmospheric effect via multiple resin pours over layers of oil, acrylic and ink on cradled board.The Whisper Series, honors the quiet meditation found in the fog layers of the morning-start or long shadows of the afternoon-heat, where one longs to stretch and inhale the surroundings of yet another incredible place and day. Each piece holds its own, creating a quiet home that allows one to recall such inspiring moments and cherished memories.
Whistling Birch Series brings botanical scenes to life in layers of resin, textured surfaces, and oil glazes; sewn together with and strong lines to depict the bold trees and flora. I seek to capture the heat of an early summer as if one could do so by wrapping large Japanese screens around the wafting waves of air as it rises. Placing layers of tinted glazes over textured surfaces creates a wallpaper backdrop of atmosphere of depth in which the botanical pieces can then come to life. ?Depicted in a contemporary softness, the subjects appear to sway and move with the wafting winds that create the journey of their life.
I believe that the growing interest in my work from around the world is grounded in having learned to “look at the world” rather than just seeing it.
© 2026
Lamorinda Arts Alliance
