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Artist - Karen Thompson

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I have been a practicing ceramic artist and arts educator for the past 25 years, working and exhibiting in Ireland and Australia before finally returning to Edinburgh. In addition to running my own studio in Dublin, I was part of an architectural ceramics company creating large scale ceramic interiors for bars, hotels and shopfronts in Dublin and throughout Europe. In Melbourne, I had a studio for 5 years and developed my studio ceramics practice, exploring hand built simple forms.
Brought up in a Scottish new town in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I was acutely aware of my architectural environment from an early age and conscious of the contrast with the Neoclassical inspired areas of Edinburgh. I have remained inspired by the public realm and all things architectural ever since, being drawn to both historic and contemporary settings; including austere detail, simple forms and intricate, historic architectural detail.
More recently my work couples inspiration from architecture and the natural world and I have been exploring the duality of bold, geometric forms and patterns, which are offset with more organic and natural imagery. I am currently developing a body of work which encompasses large, hand built sculptural vessels, decorated platters and wall pieces.
I use my own photographs and manipulate these to decorate pieces using a range of printing techniques, along with coloured slip application and various stamped, raised texture and applied mark making techniques.

BA (Hons.) Ceramics ~Grays School of Art, Aberdeen
MA Ceramics ~ Cardiff University
MA Art Therapy ~ La Trobe University, Melbourne