Born and resident at São Paulo, Brazil, Karen de Picciotto has an Administration bachelor's degree from PUC SP and in Visual Arts from Escola Panamericana de Artes SP. With an extensive curriculum, Karen studied in the city of Oxford and at USP, besides other vocational and specialization courses in many fields.

It was during her high school years that her interest in arts began, fascinated by the pictures and illustrations in her schoolbooks, she grew up collecting booklets about great artists. Karen de Picciotto started painting in her twenties but paused production to dedicate herself to her first bachelor’s in administration, later, she ended up working with product development. The artist, though, never ceased to be interested in art. It was in this period that she went through her many art courses, sharpening her methods and eye.

Deeply interested in artistic processes and new ways of painting, the artist bumped into her guiding principle. One of her artworks was next to a fan, it had bags of accumulated paint that burst with the wind and were blown to the floor. Seeing the loose lines of mixed colors the wind had created, Karen de Picciotto was inspired to begin what is now her artistic research.

Day-to-day objects, although almost always lavish and opulent, are re-signified through the most diverse colors blown upon them. The process began through the drive of creating silhouettes and negatives of an object with blown paint. The artist, though, felt a pull not only by the resulting canvas but also by the object, now texturized and deeply changed by the abstract layers of paint.

The painting applied is as sculptural as the final object, exemplifying the concept of “materiality of painting”, as José Augusto Ribeiro has described Karen’s work. One can understand volumetry through her art, not only of the object but of the painting itself, turning it into an artwork instead of a simple glass, cup, or tray.

Applied by instinct, the artist’s colors are of synthetic enamel paint. Karen studies it, from the higher viscosity of the lighter colors and how it modifies the manner they are blown up until the coating that appears over the bigger lumps, which creates the paint stalagmites that are so characteristic of her production. Karen de Picciotto explores the interaction of the synthetic enamel paint, considered to be a ‘cheap and common’ paint, over luxury objects, creating a relation between them that explores awkwardness and discomfort in the viewer. The artist re-signifies each step, the paint, the object, and the act of painting itself, creating possibilities.

With a strong presence of contemporary and a pinch of pop art, Karen embraces a vast range of visual references. Katharina Grosse’s vibrant and loose colors, Paul McCarthy’s and Mike Keller’s sculptures in between the grotesque and pop art and the multi-layered, architectonic-like paintings of Julie Mehretu with its grand scales.

Karen de Picciotto has a twenty-year artistic career, filled with awards, and over twenty group and solo exhibitions.