UK-born, self-taught artist Karen Dyer has lived in Australia for the past 30 years and calls the Brisbane suburb of West End home. Inspired by early-mid 20th Century surrealists such as Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, and Yves Tanguy, Dyer’s work reflects her spirituality and dreams. Painting solely in oil, the artist seeks to convey not just the visual reality of her subject, but the memory or emotion the subject evokes: “the distortions are a reflection on how I feel rather than what I see.” Despite painting since childhood, it was only last year that Dyer first shared her work with the public — a moment she likens to “finding yourself in the supermarket with no clothes on”. Accolades have quickly followed and in 2022, Dyer was a finalist in The Percival Portrait Painting Prize, and included in the Lethbridge Landscape Prize’s Salon des Refusés.
Featured Image: Karen Dyer, Taking Responsibility, 2022. Oil on canvas, 72 x 72cm. Courtesy: the artist.