Karina Behr

Karina studied stage and costume design in Munich at the Academy of Decorative Arts for two years and for 6 months at L?Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris before marriage and family life in England for twenty odd years. On her return to her native South Africa she enrolled at the Ruth Prowse Art School where she studied for three years under Eric Laubscher, Ryno Swart, and Jan Visser, doing Life drawing, sculpture pastel and oil painting. She won the Merit Award in 2nd year and the Portrait Prize. Her first exhibition was of portraits at the Grahamstown Festival 1987, and she took part in a group exhibition in Constantia Carmel in 1988. Karina was a founder member of the Artist?s Co-Operative in 1990, continuing to study with Ryno Swart. She co-founded ?Le Cercle d?Art? in Provence (France) in 1991, and held and exhibition of her own and her student?s work. She had a solo exhibition privately in Johannesburg in 1994 and a two woman showing with Catherine Paynter at the Wedgwood Gallery. Parkhurst, 1995. In July 1999 Karina attended a summer course at the Florence Academy of Art I Italy, studying figure and portrait drawing and painting in the Old Master, classical manner. Karina has work in private collections in Europe, England and South Africa, and she completed some major portrait commissions from 1997 to 1999, and sold two figure studies through the Everard Read Gallery in Cape Town. In October 2000 Karina exhibited seven still life paintings in London, and five varied works at an International exhibition in Avignon, France and Bienne in Switzerland. In 2001 she mounted a ?one woman? show of her varied work at Nova Constantia. From 2002 to 2005 Karina specialised in rose paintings for a shop called ?Cabbages and Roses? in Parkhurst Johannesburg, and had 10 paintings on their stand at ?Rooms on View? in May 2004, of which 7 were sold. Roses are a particular love after portraits, but now living in Plettenberg Bay she is embarking upon a new genre, that of landscape. Just as a small window onto what I do as well as paint. I am an avid explorer and in 2003 I spent a few months travelling in a group of 4 X 4?s and camping, up from Cape Town to the Sudanese border, In 2006 I did another major safari travelling up all the way to Lake Tanganyika where we spent 3 days on the ferry and then witnessed the Migration, Serengeti and Ngoro Ngoro, coming down the E African coast and visiting off shore islands. This year from mid Feb to mid March a friend and I camped for three weeks in the Arabian country of Oman. I have written a couple of articles for travel magazines about this trip. Karina is an artist in the realist, classical mode using their effects of shadow and light to create atmosphere and emotion, transcending the photographic. Karina has moved to Plettenberg Bay where she gives 5 day workshops in her own studio. Karina has chosen to work as a portraitist as well as specialising in roses and still life.'