karen doyle
KAREN DOYLE
Karen Doyle is an award-winning Impressionist oil painter. She paints luminous, colorful landscapes of Oregon in her studio and en plein air outdoors. Her paintings reflect the colorful light of the west coast. As a colorist, Karen is inspired by the breathtaking beauty of her surroundings. Her oil paintings are filled with juicy color and thick impasto brush strokes. Karen nurtures two careers: Engineering Director at Nike, and Professional Fine Artist. She is a member of the Oregon Society of Artists.
I paint oil on panel, en Plein Air (outdoors) and in my home studio, creating luminous, impressionist landscapes of Oregon. I paint with palette knife and brush, often beginning with a few pencil lines to mark out my chosen composition, then blocking in large areas of color with a brush. As the composition unfolds, I build up buttery, thick impasto layers with a palette knife, often scraping up piles of paint from my palette to create new colors with each swipe of the knife. My impressionist landscapes reflect the intense feelings I get from observing the ordinary beauty that surrounds me everyday.
I attended UC San Diego and studied a variety of subjects in the arts and sciences, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and minors in Visual Arts and Philosophy. Off to graduate school I went, to pursue a PhD in Social Psychology. My studies were interrupted when I moved to the Pacific Northwest and began pursuing my goal of becoming a working artist. I studied life drawing at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, and enrolled in the Museum School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, or PNCA) to pursue a Certificate in Fine Art. Simultaneously, I began my career at Nike, where I have now worked for over 30 years.
When Covid shut down events, workshops and conventions, I needed to rethink my involvement, and I chose to focus on local engagement. I also refreshed my membership with the American Psychological Association, a discipline which continues to be a source of passion and fulfillment for me. I am painting for myself now, not for events, and I'm finding that this freedom has invited abstraction back into my work. ~Karen Doyle
