Karen Wise is a visual artist based in Prestbury, Cheshire, whose path to painting began not in a traditional art studio, but in the world of fashion design. Trained in fashion early in her career, she spent years working with fabrics, colour palettes, and silhouettes—developing a sharp eye for composition and detail. Over time, this foundation in design laid the groundwork for her transition into fine art, as a long-standing passion for drawing and visual storytelling gradually took centre stage in her creative life.
Now a full-time painter with more than thirty years of experience, Karen's work is best known for its rich textures, layered meaning, and imaginative themes. She draws on a wide array of influences-mythology, the natural world, human emotion, historical motifs-and interprets them through a personal lens that is often tinged with surrealism. Her paintings feature recurring figures such as birds, female forms, and dreamlike landscapes, all rendered with a distinctive mix of watercolour, ink, gouache, pastels, and pencil. Her ability to work across media gives her compositions a sense of movement and psychological depth.
Karen's style resists easy categorisation. While she incorporates elements of realism, her paintings are more concerned with evoking an internal world than depicting external reality. Symbolism and suggestion take precedence over literal detail, and her use of colour and texture often carries as much narrative weight as the subject matter itself.
Her work has been exhibited at numerous venues across the UK, including the respected Art Fair Cheshire and the Blue & Berry Gallery in Chelford. She was a finalist in the Daily Mail's "Not the Turner Prize," with her work featured at the Mall Galleries in London, and received a prize at the Three Counties Open exhibition hosted by Keele University in 2020-one of several acknowledgments of her growing impact in the regional arts scene.
In addition to her studio practice, Karen remains deeply engaged with her local creative community. She delivers workshops, takes on portrait commissions, and regularly contributes to charitable exhibitions. One notable project includes a lively commissioned piece for the Macclesfield-based band The Mad Hatters, showcasing her versatility and interest in personal storytelling through art.
Karen Wise's career is a study in transformation-rooted in design, shaped by intuition, and continually evolving. Her work invites viewers not just to see, but to feel: to step into layered, imagined spaces that echo both the familiar and the fantastical.
8, King Street