Hello! I'm Karen, an artist as well as a designer.

I’ve been making art all my life. Printmaking was my concentration in university, but most recently I have been working in ink, watercolor, gouache, (occasionally) oil, and pastel. See below for a taste of my work!
01 · painting​​​​​​​
St. Dunstan’s Academy — Great Hall rendering
watercolor and colored pencil · 2025
Detail of The Temptation of St. Anthony, attributed to a follower of Pieter Breugel the Elder
acrylic-gouache on wood · 2022
02 · oil pastel
Pastel thumbnails, 2025
M74, Pisces
spiral galaxy

M87*, Virgo
supermassive black hole

NGC 7293 (Helix Nebula), Aquarius
planetary nebula

03 · satogaeri, 2021
Thesis exhibition, Ruffin Gallery
From left to right:
hidden devotion · an image for stepping · our lady of the black ships
linoleum reduction relief on mulberry and kitakata, 22" x 32"​​​​​​​
satogaeri is a personal exploration of the dual-heritage experience. The three central prints focus on religion and its interaction with culture, referencing the history of Jesuit missionary efforts and persecution during Japan's isolationist period, and the peculiar iconography that arose from the underground Japanese faithful. The subjects of the two other accompanying pieces are language fluency and self-image between two cultures. The title of the show, satogaeri, is a Japanese term meaning "a visit home to one's parents": a nostalgic and familiar term to me, yet not a term I feel entitled to, as it was not mine but my mother's satogaeri that I accompanied her on throughout my childhood. Where, then, does a child of two cultures belong? Where does one feel at home if one simultaneously finds familiarity and alienation in both cultures? satogaeri highlights the interactions between the alien and the vernacular, the outsider and the in-group — and finds grace in the peculiar in-betweens where they meet.
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