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Karen Hubacher grew up in Clarion, Pennsylvania. Despite
a childhood passion for drawing and painting she has a B.S.
from American University in Computer Systems. For 15 years
she was a systems analyst in the Department of Defense consulting
industry, with painting a part-time pursuit.
In 1986 she began studying watercolor
painting with Susan Abbott, hauling a suitcase full of art
supplies with her on business trips, painting at night in
her hotel room. A temporary move to Korea in 1989, where she
was able to devote her days to painting, was the catalyst
for leaving her career and establishing herself as a full-time,
exhibiting artist when she moved back to the Washington, DC
area. During the 1990's her creative focus moved to printmaking
and the book arts. In 2000, encouraged by a workshop with
Boston abstract painter, Wilfredo Chiesa, Hubacher began to
paint again, this time with acrylics and mixed media.
In 2001 and 2008 she was awarded Painting
Fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center. In 2002, she was
awarded a scholarship from the Santa Fe Art Institute. A class
with William Willis at the Corcoran School of Art in 2004
facilitated her current passion for working in oil.
Hubacher's "constructed" mixed
media paintings and collagraph prints are characterized by
their organized compositions and their textured surfaces.
Her materials are acrylic, oil, graphite, pastel, paper, cardboard,
canvas scraps and other random findings. In her work she addresses
the concepts of order and balance and what reflects the essence
of "place."
Her paintings and collagraph prints are
in many public and private collections throughout the United
States and Europe.
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