karolina andreasova
10 years in art, photography and design
I am Slovakian artist based in South West of UK. International background has previously opened many creative ventures. The studies and professional experiences were always related to creative industry: being chief reporter of the local and later the national news, an acoustic musician touring across Europe, or a full-time contemporary glass designer at a lovely little private art studio, just to name a few. Personally, I always prefer to be whisked away in my little quiet work space, a lifestyle evolved during my childhood years. At the age of 11, I attended a private art school, in hope I would be accepted to an art college, which didn't happen, due to enormous popularity of the course I was interested in. This mild reset on my career meant I studied completely different, soul crushing subjects for the further 5 years instead. In my free time, I was writing short novels, and I said "I don't read books, I write them."
Moving to UK at the age of 27 was adventurous and somewhat crazy leap of faith. Torn between the love of my beautiful homeland and the new cultural environment, I fell in love with the Celtic aspects of the picturesque North Devon, and, whilst working on a farm, and later as a devoted Teaching Assistant and a Youth worker at the local community college, I enthusiastically spend the rest of my time painting first commissioned portraits of horses, or children of my colleagues.
Becoming mother of two young children myself, Fine Art was put on hold, yet I continued to work from home as a cake artist. This allowed me to connect to an exciting, fast-growing global industry of extremely talented sugar artists. Entering professional art competition in Spring 2017, at the NEC Birmingham, to my great surprise, I instantly received the prestigious Gold and 1st place at "Pushing the Boundaries", category recognised as one of the most challenging. My belief in recognition based on talent, rather than education or economical background, was restored! This trend has been following until the last show in 2019 (unfortunately but understandably, all 2020 art shows had been cancelled due to the pandemic).
I now work predominantly in non-edible art mediums, and enjoy focusing on high quality photo-realism. I accept commissions in portraits of pets, people, wildlife, or fantasy creatures, - all of which had been sculpted by me many times previously. It is the three dimensional experience that makes my transition to two dimension on a canvas somewhat easier.
When I choose what medium I use, I focus on the archival properties. It makes me happy to know that the works I produce will remain intact for my clients for many years to come. Therefore, my top favourite medium to go to are the Georgian oils. I also use mixed media, such as acrylics, inks, airbrush, pastels, charcoal, or pencils. In the archive, you'll find a few digital illustrations as well.
All through my life, I photographed local events and stunning nature sceneries, as did my father, Prof. Teodor Andreas, a remarkable award-winning Slovakian photographer whom we lost in 2018, and whom I always try to make proud. By following in his footsteps, I feel that I have finally understood the complexity of all my creative passions, embracing intuition both in art, and photography. After all, photography is an art form, too, and art owes photography a lot, as well.
