Meet Karen Doyle | Fine Artist, ex-Nike

We had the good fortune of connecting with Karen Doyle and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Karen, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a lifelong artist, I have always drawn, painted, and studied art. I did not envision becoming a professional artist, as I was cautioned by my draftswoman mother that I would not be able to make money that way. So I studied Psychology in college, but minored in art. I kept studying art while working at Nike, Inc. in a corporate career, taking weekend and evening classes and obtaining a Certificate in Fine Art. I kept painting, showing my work locally. Along came iphones and social media. In 2015, I was showing photos of my paintings to a peer manager at Nike. He suggested that I create a website and share my artwork more broadly. That was all the encouragement that I needed. While my kids were at their evening activities, I worked on creating a website and business social media presence, and began to call myself a part-time professional fine artist. I learned that a website and organized image files is super helpful when entering juried calls for art, events and shows. Painting kept me sane during my last 10 years working at Nike, Inc. It gave me a secondary line of work that I knew I would turn to once I eventually retired. I kept my toes in the art world all of those years because I knew that becoming a professional fine artist took time and energy.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Like many artists, I started as a representational painter. I learned with oil paints and chalk pastels as a teenager. In college, I continued with representational drawing and painting, going for a likeness of what I saw. This was fun and challenging, but not terribly creative. While studying painting at the Pacific Northwest College of Art post-college, I had a teacher named Tom Cramer who taught Advanced Painting. It was a studio class, and each week was a new challenge. One week we were instructed to “make a bad painting” by using color, marks, and compositions that we disliked. We are painting abstractly in this class, which was new for me. After working about an hour on the “bad painting,” Tom asked us to now look at what we had done, and find at least one area in that painting that we liked. This was a pivotal moment, where I realized the importance of experimentation, of process over product, and of taking chances in our art making. I also learned that most of my paintings looked like landscapes, even when I was attempting to paint non-representationally or abstractly. Tom observed that the colors I selected seemed aligned with the San Francisco Bay Area, where I was from. I began researching California artists, and from then forward aligned myself most with colorful impressionism which abstracted, not represented, the landscape. My style is loose and often thick. I paint quickly. I may paint many, many layers in a single painting, completely changing the look of the painting from start to finish. I do not draw out my composition first but prefer to jump in and paint directly. For the past 10 years, I have mostly done painting en Plein Air (French for “out of doors”) and I attended the annual Plein Air Convention for four years from 2016-2019. This gave me the confidence to travel with my paints and paint on location in Santa Fe, Tucson, San Diego and San Francisco. When the pandemic shut down events and gallery shows, I painted more at my home and returned to some larger abstracted landscape works. Now, I enjoy both. I still consider myself new to the South Bay, having moved here in August 2023. I have painted on location from Malaga Cove overlooking Rat Beach, and from off PV Drive overlooking Bluff Cove. I’ve painted in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach and Balboa Island. I am slowly getting to know other local artists and art groups. I joined the Palos Verdes Art Center and have been happy to show my work in their Winter and Summer Shows, as well as the gallery and gift shop at the center, The Artists’ Studio gallery where I volunteer. I never did any “festivals” before moving here. I guess Oregon is too rainy to have those from May – October. I have shown at the Malaga Cove Art on the Lawn show, and the Hermosa Beach Fine Art Festival. I am experimenting to see what people like – my smaller Plein Air landscapes, or my larger abstract acrylic collage. Painting in just one style can get kind of stifling, so I intend to continue painting both local scenes on location and larger abstract paintings. I am a recent breast cancer survivor, and I find that I cannot tolerate heat like I used to be able to. I love painting outdoors, but it is more difficult than it used to be. Painting large is incredibly freeing and I can do it indoors at home. Somewhere down the road, there will be a synergy between my Plein Air paintings on location and my larger abstract landscapes. I have been painting a lot of blues and greens, channeling the oceans and trees. I had to learn how to paint waves and the ocean after painting mostly trees up in Oregon. As I work to establish myself locally, I hope that people are open to welcoming me into the artist community. I have met a lot of artists through the Palos Verdes Art Center groups. I’ve just begun to explore Destination Arts in Torrance, and the Hermosa Beach arts community, with the Hermosa Museum, Art Festival, and new Gallery of Hermosa where I’ve shown twice now. I am a connector and I love to introduce artists to one another and point out shows and opportunities to different artists. I am not in this just for me – I am in this to connect with the local community, both artists and collectors. I would love people to enjoy my art enough to purchase it and hang it in their homes. My work can be seen at The Artists’ Studio gallery and shop at the PV Art Center on a permanent basis. We change out the artwork there every 2 months and I volunteer there at least once a month. I am proud to be associated with the PV Art Center. While I am not yet able to make a living as an artist, I am really enjoying my engagement with the local South Bay art community. As an ex-Nike lifer (someone who spent their entire career at Nike), I am grateful to have grown my art career part-time while working in corporate, and grateful that I now get to paint every day, with the foundation that I built over 40 years supporting me. When people ask me what I do, I love getting to say “I’m an artist.”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We moved to Palos Verdes Estates from Beaverton, Oregon last August, so I am still learning about the South Bay. So far, my favorite spots include The Yellow Vase in Malaga Cove and Creme de la Crepe in Redondo for coffee and lunch, Hook & Plow and The Rockefeller in Hollywood Riviera for dinner, or a visit to Terranea for a fancy meal. I enjoy taking visitors to all of those local places and feel so lucky to live in a town that has a permanent vacation vibe. Besides eating out, I like to walk down to RAT Beach from Malaga Cove and also walk along the Strand. I like visiting Manhattan Beach to go to Pages bookstore and Verve coffee, and the MB Farmers Market. I like going to the Botanical Garden so I would take a friend there, and just go for local walks along the cliffs in PV. I am not a nightlife person, but I do enjoy going to art gallery openings, so we would probably visit the local galleries like Resin, Gallery of Hermosa, and check out the PV Art Center. I love living local in the South Bay.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to my husband Sean, who has supported my interest in the arts all of these years. I could not have invested the time that I have into artist workshops, traveling, and events without his support.

Website: https://www.karendoylefineart.com/

Instagram: @karen_paints

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-doyle-8147aa76/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarenDoyleFineArt/

Image Credits
Karen Doyle, Sean Doyle