Dusk Oil on canvas • 48" x 48" $2,000

Dog swimming Oil on canvas • 30" x 40" $1,800

My Dad's Boat Oil on canvas • 30" x 40" $1,800

Blackbirds Oil on canvas • 49" x 59" $2,400

Boy with Fireflies Oil on canvas • 37 1/2" x 48" $2,000

Stick Charcoal on paper • 30" x 44" $675

Squirrel Charcoal on paper 50" x 38" (unframed) $675

Burning Boat Oil on canvas • 43" x 56" $2,200

Landscape with Lizard Oil on canvas • 47" x 57" $2,100

Chair 1 Oil on canvas • 42" x 42" $1,800

Chair 2 Oil on canvas • 30" x 48" $1,800

About the Artist

Karen Spears, a professor of art at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, lives in Lexington. Before joining the EKU faculty, she taught at the University of Louisville-where she received her own bachelor's degree in fine arts-from 1983 to 1986. She has also been a visiting artist at Brisons Veor Workspace in Cornwall, England; at the American Academy in Rome, Italy; and in the University of Georgia's Studies Abroad program in Cortona, Italy. She received her master's in painting and drawing from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

In 2000, Karen took part in an exhibition called In Living Color, a visual/performing arts collaboration that joined an invitational art exhibit with a Northern Kentucky Symphony performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 6. Her work also has been featured in one-person shows at Galerie Hertz in Louisville, Indiana University Southeast, and Saint Xavier College in Chicago, as well as regional group exhibitions in Chicago, Georgia, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Tennessee. She has received two Al Smith Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and two fellowships from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her works are in the collections of Oklahoma State University, Louisville Gas & Electric Co., McDonald's, Wabash College, the University of Louisville School of Business, and other corporate and private collections, as well as book collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Olin Library, and the University of Houston, among others.

Artist's Statement

My work is primarily autobiographical and has narrative aspects to it. The subject matter may be my family, animals, or other imagery, which comes from real-life situations, places, and experiences. Sometimes, these things are combined with images and spaces that are less controlled, less conscious. There is often an element of mystery--a tension between what is known and what is felt.

Some of my current work explores the landscape environment with the accompanying metaphor that natural forces in the environment may have for the self. I have also been dealing more with the domestic arena--both interiors and "exteriors"--and the beautifully magical occurrences that come out of everyday observations and experiences.

Karen Spears, 2003