Karen O'Brien American
Karen O’Brien is a distinguished American mixed media artist celebrated for her richly textured surfaces, evocative characters, and intuitive creative language. Her work reveals a deep fascination with color, emotion, and the transformative power of artistic play.
Karen O’Brien is a self-taught mixed-media artist celebrated for her soulful characters and expressive abstract work. She began her creative journey as a “teddy bear” artist before gradually transitioning into mixed media painting, embracing experimentation across different materials and techniques.
Over the years, she has honed a distinctive style: many of her paintings use acrylics combined with charcoal, glazes, and varnish, often resulting in large pieces (most are 24″ × 30″ or larger) that capture her fascination with color, light, patterns, and emotional energy. Her creative process emphasizes spontaneity and curiosity, she encourages a playful, fearless approach, believing that art emerges when one “dives in and sees what happens.”
Her work has been exhibited in galleries (for example at Gallery One in Grants Pass, Oregon) and featured in multiple art publications and books focused on mixed media and imaginative figures. Beyond creating art, O’Brien also teaches mixed-media painting, offering workshops and guiding students to explore their own creativity without fear of mistakes.
Through her art and teaching, Karen O’Brien invites viewers and aspiring artists to embrace emotion, experiment with color and form, and trust the unfolding process of creation. Her work stands as a tribute to the power of intuitive expression, imagination, and the vibrant possibilities of mixed-media art.