Karen Graf
Whether in landscapes, still lifes or allegorical portraits, Radebeul-based painter Karen Graf creates a quiet, introspective, often poetically melancholic visual world that tells of everyday moments and memories. Her works feature soft, finely balanced colours and harmonious compositions.
curriculum vitae
| 1963 | born in Dresden |
| 1982-1985 | evening studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HfBK) Dresden under Agathe Böttcher and Fritz Panndorf |
| 1982-1986 | work in various professions |
| 1986 | A-level |
| since then employed at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) | |
| 1990 | birth of son Valentin |
| 1991 | marriage to the painter Peter Graf |
| 1992 | birth of son Paul |
| 2002 | relocation to Radebeul |
| participation in the international art project »Atelier del Artista« in Tuscany | |
| lives and works in Radebeul |
Karen Graf favours her pictorial solutions in landscapes, interiors and still lifes with an almost naive poetry. Her oil paintings are always imbued with a message of beauty that makes the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar unfamiliar.
Gegen den Zynismus der Zeit, in: SAX, Ausgabe Mai 2022, S. 34
The cool, subdued yet rich chromaticism intensifies the artist's concise painting style, which focuses on the essentials. She achieves spatial depth through a glazed, delicate brushstroke, and occasionally incisions in the form of delicate abrasions of the still-wet oil paint add an extra dimension of texture to her almost porcelain-like colour skin.
Zwischen Lebensspur und Sinnbild, in: SAX, Ausgabe Oktober 2024
The colourfulness and style also reveal a great need for harmony. This is also reflected in a visible tendency towards the »rounded«, organic. Nothing in the pictures appears conspicuously pointed or bulky. Even stones are without edges. Thus, Karen Graf's pictures are above all a mirror of herself – a personality that radiates truthfulness and wants to live in harmony with nature and people.
Karen Graf, Dresden 2008, S. [3]
further exhibitions
| 2001 | library Dresden-Klotzsche |
| 2002 | Kunsthandlung Höhne, Cuxhaven |
| 2003 | Galerie Kunstraum Seite, Dresden: »Traumfänger« |
| Kunstraum Medingen | |
| 2005 | Refugium Böhmertstraße, Dresden |
| Neue Sächsische Galerie, Dresden | |
| Marcolini Palais, Dresden | |
| 2006 | Galerie Mitte, Dresden: »Blütenzauber« |
| Pro Seniora, Güntzstraße, Dresden | |
| Sächsische Landesaerztekammer, Dresden | |
| Kunstkabinett Kempin, Radebeul | |
| 2007 | St. Marienkrankenhaus, Dresden |
| 2008 | Galerie Coselpalais, Dresden |
| Einnehmerhaus, Kunstverein Freital e.V., Freital | |
| 2009 | Galerie Refugium, Medingen: »still life painting« |
| KBA Planeta, Radebeul | |
| 2010 | Kunstverein Pirna: »Zwischen Herbst und Sommer« |
| Galerie Doebele, Dresden | |
| Galerie Klinger, Liegau-Augustusbad | |
| Kaethe-Kollwitz-Haus, Moritzburg (participation) | |
| Kunstsammlung Gera: »Sachsen und Meer« (participation) | |
| 2011 | Galerie am Plan, Pirna: »Stillleben« |
| Staatsanwaltschaft Goerlitz: »Von der Elbe zur Neiße« | |
| Galerie Bruederstraße, Goerlitz | |
| 2012 | Zahnaerztehaus, Dresden: »Leiser Wind« |
| Galerie Pferdestall, Heimatverein Goepfersdorf e.V. | |
| 2013 | Stadtgalerie Radebeul: »Karen Graf und Christian URI Weber« |
| 2014 | Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi: »Encounter with Pirosmani« |
| Praxisklinik Herz und Gefaeße, Dresden | |
| Ostsaechsische Kunsthalle Pulsnitz: »Kuenstler im Selbstbildnis« | |
| 2015 | Klinkhardt-Bau, Wurzen |
| Kaethe-Kollwitz-Haus, Moritzburg | |
| 2016 | Galerie am Plan, Pirna |
| 2016/17 | Praxisklinik Herz und Gefaeße, Dresden |
| 2017/18 | Galerie Refugium, Medingen (with Peter Graf) |
| 2018 | GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden: »Holunderzeit« |
| Galerie in der Zentralbibliothek, Dresden (with Peter Graf) | |
| 2020 | Galerie Klinger, Liegau-Augustusbad |
| 2021 | Kaethe-Kollwitz-Haus, Moritzburg |
| 2022 | GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden: »Verweile doch« |
| Galerie ebe, Parchim | |
| 2024 | GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden: »Poesie des Alltags« (with Peter Graf) |
| Galerie & Museum Heimatstuben Schellerau |
