| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Karen Brownlee graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Lethbridge with a major in clinical psychology and a minor in art. Throughout the following two decades, she pursued additional arts education at the University of Lethbridge, the Red Deer College and in workshops across Canada. She has studied and taught oriental brush techniques.
In 1980 she began her full time professional art practice. She has an extensive and varied arts background as a painter, art teacher, art juror, and administrator. Her watercolour paintings reflect her deep Alberta roots that go back four generations on her mother’s side. Her paintings speak of the relevance and symbolism of man's historic relationship with the land. Her artworks have been featured in books, including The Sakura Tree (Red Deer Press, 2007), and solo exhibitions in public art galleries throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, including the Royal Alberta Museum (Edmonton, AB), The Leighton Foundation (Calgary, AB), the Art Gallery of Calgary, and the Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery (Medicine Hat, AB). In 2005, Red Deer Press published a book featuring her grain elevator watercolours entitled Alberta Remembers: Recalling our Rural Roots. She collaborated with Edmonton author and editor, Ken Tingley who provided the text. |