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Karen Brock is a Sydney-based painter working from her Northern Beaches studio. Her practice centres on familiar neighbourhood scenes at transitional times of day — dusk, dawn, and early evening — where subtle shifts of light and atmosphere transform the everyday. In 2025, she was awarded the Residency Award at the Lethbridge Landscape Prize was awarded 2nd Prize in the Waverley Woollahra 9 x 5 Art Prize and received a Highly Commended in the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award. In 2024, her work was recognised as a Finalist in the National Emerging Art Prize, the Lethbridge Landscape Prize, and the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award. She has presented her continuing and developing series of Nocturnes at The Other Art Fair for the past two years.

 

My nocturne paintings explore the quiet intensity of evening and night - the hours when colour softens, edges dissolve and familiar places become something more inward and reflective.

I love the blue hour, when indoor lights turn on and beckon us home, our place to retreat and recharge.

These works often begin with observed and familiar landscapes or remembered places, then move toward interpretation rather than description. Influenced by Impressionism and the poetic restraint of Japanese woodblock prints, I use simplified forms and tonal harmony to suggest mood. 

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2025

2nd Prize WWAS 9 x 5 Exhibition

Awarded Residency Prize Lethbridge Gallery

Finalist in the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Prize

Finalist in the Lethbridge Landscape Prize

Selected to Exhibit at The Other Art Fair SYD May 2025

 

2024

Selected as a finalist in the National Emerging Art Prize

Selected as a finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Prize

Selected as a finalist in the Lethbridge Landscape Prize

Selected to Exhibit at The Other Art Fair SYD May 2024

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2023

 

Selected as a finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Prize

Selected as a finalist in the Lethbridge Landscape Prize

Where We Live Group Show - Creative Space, Curl Curl March 2023

Selected as a finalist in the Mosman Rowers Art Prize

Mosman Rowers Art Prize Exhibition - The Mosman Rowers Club, March 2023

 

 

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2022

Selected as a Bluethumb Art Prize Finalist with her Australian Gum treescape 'Breakthrough'

Karen's sensitive depiction of local Swamp Gum trees as they appeared in silhouette, with a stormy sky backdrop in 'Swamp Gums at Noon' was selected by the Michael Reid curator Amber-Creswell Bell for her ACB Selects Online Exhibition.

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These paintings depict the unique tree canopy shapes of the dominant Australian tree species occurring in the Narrabeen Lake area  - the Swamp Mahogany (Eucalyptus Robusta) and Swamp She-Oak (Casuarina Glauca).  

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5 Year Anniversary Exhibition- Northern Beaches Gallery, Cromer, June 2022

National Emerging Art Prize, ACB Selects Exhibition February 2022 

Land & Sea Exhibition, Northern Beaches Gallery, Cromer, March 2022

 

 

 

2021

 A collection of Karen's Floral Still Life oil paintings were exhibited as part of a Still Life Group Show at Northern Beaches Gallery, Cromer. 

 

From time spent immersed in the natural landscape at Eramboo artist environment, Karen completed a series of plein air oil studies of the bush understory. 

 

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