The Studio
Hello, from my studio. I’m an emerging artist who blends the botanical with the antique. For nearly two decades, my medium was the earth itself. As a garden designer, I spent my days creating green sanctuaries for clients, keeping composition, texture, shape, and color in mind. Today, I apply those principles to a different kind of canvas, but the inspiration remains the same: the wild, resilient beauty of the natural world.
The Artist & Maker’s Mark
When in the garden and in the pages of my books, I’m Karen, a designer of landscapes and teller of stories. But when I step into the quiet of the studio, I return to a more private self.
At the easel, I work under the name Kaja.
Kaja is my husband’s nickname for me, a nickname for Karen in both Polish and Swedish, of which I’m both. And now it serves as my maker’s mark. It represents the intimacy of the creative process, the moments where the noise of the world falls away and only the texture of the canvas and curve of a petal remains. While my history is rooted in twenty years of garden design as Karen, my art is signed as Kaja. It’s my way of ensuring every piece leaving the studio carries with it the spirit of the sanctuary where it was born.
The Art of the New Artifact
My philosophy is to "reuse and renew" whenever I can. I’m an intentional hunter of overlooked and discarded ephemera. Drawing from my time living in France, I love antique objects that carry a sense of history: vintage papers, foxed photographs, forgotten jewelry, and romantic fabrics.
I fuse these fragments with paint and botanical elements to create what I call “New Artifacts.” These pieces feel as though they were unearthed rather than manufactured, bridging the gap between a found object and fine art.
A Commitment to the Earth
Because my heart’s still in the garden, I am deeply committed to the materials I use. Whenever possible, I use natural and reclaimed elements. My paints, glues, and finishes are non-toxic whenever possible, and most of my papers and "baubles" are from charity shops and rummage sales.
Whether the material comes directly from the earth or from the "world of the overlooked," my goal is to give you a beautiful, soulful viewing experience.
Latest Artwork
Marcel Proust’s words about a garden of hawthorn tree blossoms inspired this piece. He speaks so poetically, I had to create an image that might capture his vision of flowers forming a kind of elaborate scepter: “one of those spikes of pink flowers, which, widening at its base and tapering at its summit, formed, beneath its blossoms of lace, a rococo scepter."
A passage from Flaubert’s Madame Bovary inspired this piece. Emma sees her wedding crown, now faded and discarded. It’s a melancholy moment but also a beautiful one.
Victor Hugo wrote of a wild garden that had been left to itself. Its overgrown beauty offers solace: “It was as if this garden were no longer a garden, but a thought. It was a place where one might come to sit and think of nothing, or to think of everything. It was a place where the soul could breathe.”
