galleries purchase events about resources

"As a photographer and watercolor painter, I get to live in parallel worlds. I sometimes use my photographs as references for my watercolor paintings and drawings, and conversely, the practice of painting has enhanced my overall ability to see. Watercolor painting, like photography, can be a spontaneous and time-sensitive medium, but it invites a deeper, longer gaze. Building with pigment to define edges, shapes, values, colors and depth is like recreating a subject from the inside out. Photography can eternalize a moment for future contemplation." - Karen Andrews

BIOGRAPHY | KAREN JUDITH ANDREWS I became fascinated with visual art after reading the letters of Van Gogh for a high school paper. His obsession with specific colors and details of nature inspired me to want to know what it would feel like to be that connected to the world through my eyes. During my senior year in high school I spent endless hours in the painting studio, discovering shapes, forms, light and shadows for the first time. I loved the feel of applying paint to canvas. Studying Art History at Oberlin College gave me a comprehensive overview of art, and filled me to the brim with ideas, approaches and possibilities for expression. I combined my degree with Studio Art, and spent many absorbing hours in the printmaking studio. After college I began doing photojournalism and documentary street photography in socially challenged neighborhoods of Boston. Influenced by the work of photographer Eugene Richards, I embarked on a photo essay called “Eastie”, an essay documenting East Boston, a neighborhood besieged by urban problems. I moved to New Haven to help renovate a factory building into artist's studios, and filled the building with photographers, dancers, painters, sculptors and graphic designers. I experimented with fabric painting and surface design, and had a small crafts business vending one-of-a-kind Tee shirts. I continued photographing the blighted neighborhoods of New Haven. I began walking in the woods every day with my camera in order to connect more deeply with nature, and eventually followed my heart to the Berkshires. I settled into a more rural lifestyle, shifting from urban documentary to contemplative landscape photography, and began relearning to draw and paint, using watercolor and charcoal. I found the transition between painting and photography to be both nourishing and stimulating. I married my husband, Michael, a gifted woodworker and artist, and together we fixed up our former horse barn into the Inner Vision Studio, a summer gallery space where I can exhibit my photography and watercolor.

INNER VISION STUDIO You can meet the artist at Inner Vision Studio, open every weekend all summer long. We have lots of happy art-lovers, great food and a whimsical garden. Modeled after the artist-owned exhibition spaces that dot the landscape of Deer Island, Maine, Inner Vision Studio was created as a venue for me to show my original photography and watercolor. Most of the currently exhibited work will be displayed on this site, so if you see something you like, and just want time to decide, you can use the site to help jar your memory. Or you may see something you like on the site, but want to know what it really looks like in person! The Inner Vision Studio is a converted horse stable that my husband and I fixed up in 2006. It's painted periwinkle with lavender, coral and yellow trim, and is a work of art in and of itself. It is open summer and fall weekends and by appointment. If you want to be on my mailing list, please email me your contact information. For more information, see the Inner Vision Studio Gallery Page INNER VISION STUDIO FURNACE ROAD CORNER OF CONE HILL ROAD WEST STOCKBRIDGE, MA

GALLERIES & INSTALLATIONS DeCordova Museum Corporate Lending Program, Lincoln, MA Hartford Hospital Chapel, Hartford, CT American Institute in Taiwan, Art in Embassies Show: "New England in Contemporary American Art" Mercury Corporation, Boston, MA Pearl Street Gallery, Hartford, CT Young and Constantin Gallery, Wilmington, VT S.A.S. Gallery, Housatonic, MA Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery, Shelburne, VT Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Lenox, MA Canyon Ranch, Lenox, MA Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA Macy Gallery, Valhalla, NY Leibowitz Gallery, Simon's Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, MA

In The Press Click here to read the interview with Karen J. Andrews that appeared in the July 2008 issue of the Artful Mind magazine of the Berkshires: PDF retyped format