Karen Hook (MCA /BCA/ /Dip Ed/Adv Dip FA) Worked as a Lecturer at Wollongong University, TAFE, and the Dept Education for 18 years. Karen is a practicing artist living in the Illawarra and currently helping people of all ages (NDIS) navigate their way to health through Art. Karen also teaches private and group art classes in the Illawarra and conducts Plein Air Workshops and Outings; she established the Illawarra Plein Air Artist in 2018.

In her own Art Practice Karen explores the possibilities of painting, drawing and photography, sometimes as independent mediums and also as these forms of art expression overlap and inform each other. Her still life work won the Still Life Art Prize (2022) PCAG, and she been a finalist in numerous awards: including exhibitions at BDAS, EMSLA, Flow Wollongong Gallery, Fishers Ghost, the Waverly Art Prize, as well as, inclusion in numerous group shows at: Project Gallery 90 (Paddington), Lane Cove Sydney, Wollongong Gallery, Parliament House, Project Contemporary Gallery, (Wollongong), Clifton School of Arts and Dawes Studio in Kiama… to name a few. Her work has been purchased for private collections both International and in Australia.

Recently Karen Hook has returned from Hill End (2023) Fowlers Gap (2023) and the East MacDonnell Ranges (2022), where she created several bodies of work, photographing, painting and drawing Plein Air and also studio work back in the Illawarra.  Karen was also accepted for an International Art Residency in France (2019) and hopes to continue to travel and explore…painting, drawing and photographing these experiences into the future.