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Karen gained a First Class Honours Degree from Winchester School of Art, specialising in printed textiles. After graduating she worked for a number of design agencies, selling work in the UK and throughout Europe. On returning to Cornwall, Karen gained her teaching qualification and lectured in Art & Design and Textiles at Truro College where she achieved her City and Guilds in Machine Embroidery. She now works as a freelance artist and has recently had a series of her illustrations published. Karen is proud of her Cornish heritage and draws inspiration from the dramatic landscapes and atmospheric scenery the county is blessed with. She combines painting, collage and machine embroidery to create textural and multi-dimensional pieces, using machine free stitching to draw on the finer details. All the fabrics and materials used in her work are recycled and re-purposed, from old photographs and photocopies to clothing and soft furnishings. Materials, colours and stitches are layered to create a sense of depth and to convey the different qualities of the landscape, from rugged moorland and windswept clifftops to sweeping fields and vast beaches