Karen Laird: Biography 1998-2025
Author: Amy Houston 2025

Karen Laird has worked as an artist and across the arts industry for the last twenty-six years. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours and a Graduate Diploma of Education, Sculpture and Art Communications from the Queensland Collage of Art. In addition to working as an established artist, with some of her work being toured with the Craft Council and the Institute of Modern Art.

Karen Laird has had an expansive art teaching career working across various arts organisations. These include: the Brisbane Institute of Art (thirteen years), Queensland Collage of Arts (three years), Griffith University(three years) and Queensland University of Technology (three years), at Flying Arts Incorporation (four years), and as an Art Program Coordinator and teacher at the Brisbane Women’s Correctional Center (eleven years).

Karen Laird works across a variety of mediums but primarily with ‘drawing materials such as graphite, watercolour pencils, pen and ink in visual dairies.’  She favours a visual diary and the above materials because they allow her too ‘experiment with ideas and effects.’ Stating that ‘it’s a process that is endlessly satisfying and useful.’ Laird currently preferences water colour pencils. ‘It’s helping me to push their limit and get pleasing effects.’ When asked if she has any difficulty working with these mediums she said ‘'no, the beauty of them is their simplicity. I can work abstractly or realistically.’

The studio model that Laird has chosen influences the types of materials that she uses. She states that ‘in my early practice, 35 years ago, the material I preferred was clay. Sometimes I was commissioned to do larger sculptures. For this kind of work, I needed large indoor space and big gas kilns. I couldn’t do this now as my studios are small.’

When asked about her process for each resolved work she creates, Laird explained that she prefers to ‘work the composition out on paper before committing to canvas. I then build the painting up in layers. I enact drama towards the final resolution to maximise impact.'

Lairds material process has evolved throughout her career. She is now ‘very mindful of objects and space. I don’t want to produce objects that will be around forever like junk. I am careful what I produce now.’To produce a resolved work Laird states that ‘once I have explored a theme in watercolour in diaries, I think about committing my ideas to canvas and oil paint.’

Lairds resolved works are completed using mediums such as oil, acrylic and gouache, on materials such as paper and canvas.

Lairds work focuses on a diverse range of subjects, including still-life, portraits, and expansive landscapes. The overarching ideas behind her conceptual practice are

“For many years my work was social activism which claimed public attention but the works were largish and hard to home. Some went on tour with the Craft Council or IMA but would return to me years later once the tour was finished. Storage became a big issue. Taking the step into 2D work like drawing and painting was huge. I had to rethink my themes and ideas. Activist painting fell flat as people like to look at challenging ideas but not necessarily support or own them. My work now is more about nature rather than the human condition and its impact on the world. “

Expanding on this, Laird discusses her inspiration for the key themes in her work, stating

“ Spending time in nature inspires me. Walking along a road at dawn and seeing sunshine streaming through foliage is an example. It seems a small idea but really, it’s colossal. I try and convey this. Light, shade, colour as nature presents it... light and how it illuminates the world is endlessly seductive to me. Nature is dramatic and theatrical... The creative intelligence of nature. Natures changing moods and forms. Animals in nature returning home at dusk. Dingoes stalking rats or playing with elephant beetles. Dogs sleeping. Landforms that look like animals.”

Part of Lairds conceptual practise involves working on a piece for a period, allowing it to sit and contemplate it, before returning to it after a few weeks. She ‘especially likes to do this with commissions, I try to resolve all aspects of the work. She dislikes creating multiple works simultaneously, as she tries to ‘ slow my process, so each major work is satisfyingly complete.’

Karen Lairds motivating factors behind the production of her work is a personal response to what she sees. ‘Sometimes I imagine a scene. Currently I am working on a commission about white cockatoos flying home to roost. It’s a memory piece. I saw it once and I am trying to use my minds eye to reproduce it.’

Expanding of this, Laird talks of how her mood and feelings impact on her work, saying

“ I recently did a series of paintings of black summer storms breaking over Buchanan’s Forte at Christmas Creek. These works are very moody and relieve tumultuous feelings and thoughts.

I feel very emotional about the wrongness of animal slaughter for meat, so I did a series of cow paintings where they had human expression in their eyes. People who saw them didn’t really get it. They thought ‘cute cows with nice eyes. ‘

When considering Lairds two studios, they each effect Lairds conceptual practise. Her studio at Christmas Creek facilitates contemplation and meditation. Laird states that

“it is a beautiful place to work because I can hear the constant gurgle of the creek and all the birds - big and small- like to come and stick their beaks in.' Furthermore, Laird finds that each studio individually influences her outcomes, stating that ‘the Christmas Creek studio is the best because it’s such a soothing environment. In the city studio I work hard and tend to get brainwashed.”

Laird mentioned that in each studio she has the same focus but that she ‘suspects the outcomes are better at the Christmas Creek studio.’ While Lairds' studio model lends itself to working independently, which is an important aspect to her overall practice, she also enjoys collaborating with other artists. She explains that ‘once a week I paint in the company of four other women. We get a lot done as we critique and help each other to solve issues within our work. I also love working on my own, in unbroken silence.’

The most crucial elements of the studio to Laird are

“ for me are good, steady, white light and very good ventilation, especially when using oil paint and solvents.”

At times Laird finds her space limiting and needs to make adaptions saying, 'it’s hard doing large works but I find a way around it’ but ‘now that I have adjusted to working in 2D, the impact is minimal.’

Given Lairds evident affinity for nature and to further explore how her surroundings impact her creativity, she was asked if she ever draws or paints en plein air and, if so, whether this practice has any bearing on her artistic expression. She explained that ‘when painting en plain air I work quickly and vigorously, which gives a pleasing sense of life and spontaneity.’

This biography has considered established artist Karen Laird within the context of an interview conducted on the 26 June, 2025.

It aimed to explore the conceptual intentions, visual outcomes, and working processes, as well as the associated studio environment and its interplay between these four factors. It has shown the pivotal role of the studio to Lairds conceptual and material processes, demonstrating the profound interconnectedness of the artists conceptual and material processes to their studio model.