Spotlight on: Karen Offutt, 2017 Texas Top Ten

Name:  Karen Offutt

City:  Austin, Texas

Website:  www.karenoffutt.com

"Lighthouse", 24"x18", oil on board 

BIO:

A native Texan, figurative artist Karen Offutt was self-taught until her mid-twenties when she began to take a more formal approach to her education focusing on drawing and painting with oils at Austin Fine Arts Classes.  She has also studied with some of today's most nationally renowned artists.  While taking a few years off to raise her kids, Karen yearned to reexamine and redefine the direction of her work both in technique and content.  While Karen's previous body of work has the ethereal feel of a memory, her most recent paintings invite the viewer into a world of her creation.

Karen's work has been featured in various publications such as Southwest Art Magazine, American Art Collector, International Artist Magazine, Artist on Art among others.  Her work has also won awards and received recognition nationally from Salon International, the Portrait Society of America, and Oil Painters of America.  Over the years her work has shown in various invitational and juried shows such as Emerging Artist Show in Scottsdale, AZ, U.S. Artists Show in Philadelphia, PA, American Art Invitational in Denver, CO, Women Painting Women in Charleston, SC, Women Painting Women in Georgetown, TX, and Painters Painting Painters in Austin, TX.

She currently has work in Jack Meier Gallery in Houston, TX, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO, Principle Gallery in Charleston, SC and in the Waterhouse Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA. 

Karen and her husband, along with their two young boys, live in Austin, Texas.