"Everything is a mystery, ourselves, and all things both simple and humble." Morandi

Karen Birkin’s work entwines personal identity, nature, and ancestral memory into a quiet, contemplative force. Living between the Welsh coast and London, her practice draws from Celtic mythology and animist belief, where all things possess spirit. She thinks a lot about space, psychological space, warped space, liminal space, infinite space, uncertainty, endless movement and the transience of all things. She seeks out connections, emotional, lyrical, often with links to poetry, film, literature and other works of art.

Her intimate portraits and dreamlike landscapes explore motherhood, transformation, and the delicate threads that bind us to each other and where we live. Inspired by Rimbaud and Bachelard, Birkin captures “intimate immensity”—a vastness within the small—inviting us into a world of reflection, reverie, and soulful connection.

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Courtauld Institute BA History of Art 1996, 1996-2004 Film production/scriptwriting Tartan Films.

2001-2005 Restoration of early Netherlandish paintings for Patrick Corbett studio Beaufort Street. Evening classes with David Cranswick and Stephane Rene in old master painting and icon painting.

2006-2008 BA in Fine Art at Coleg Menai, unfinished due to becoming a mother.

October 2021, Bangor University, Postgraduate certificate in Fine Art with distinction.

2022 Turps correspondence course.

Since 2016 exhibited regularly and had solo exhibitions with Oriel Plas Glen y Weddw in north Wales and The Table in Hay-on-Wye. Selected for Wells Cathedral exhibition in 2022 and COLAB body and place residency at owl pen manor in 2023. Two works selected for 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and currently part of Docent’s upcoming series “Sources of self”, one work selected for 2025 Royal academy Summer Exhibition.

Forthcoming solo show in April 2026 at the Table, Hay-on-Wye. Two works shortlisted for 2026 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.