Bio

Atlanta native Karen Deans graduated in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in art history from the American University in Paris. She worked briefly as an Atlanta journalist before moving to Tokyo. 

In Japan, she studied the ancient art of Ikebana and the aesthetic of wabi-sabi, a practice of grasping the profound and subtle beauty of nature. 

Karen and her young family returned to the United States in 1991, where she began painting murals in and around Washington, D.C., set up a studio and exhibited her oil paintings at Studio Gallery.  

Her focus on rendering the natural world through abstract notions of line, form and design gave birth to an original concept she called Wooden Tile. In 2005, she founded this business producing and selling limited addition prints, jewelry and stationery. Her Wooden Tile line was carried in more than 150 boutiques nationwide and is currently available at Artful Home. 

For Karen, painting is connection, an intuitive exchange not only between artist and subject, but also between artist and audience. This connection has led her to a deeper exploration of abstraction, expressed through oil paint, water media and encaustic works. 

Through the mystery that weds painter to canvas, Karen seeks to unveil the emotions we share as people, and to create vivid expressions of the visual beauty, order and balance found in the natural world.