Karen Bullock

Karen is a photographic artist living in Alabama. She is known for her documentary-style images of the American South, with a focus on expressions of faith, considerations of home, and the enduring spirit of nature. Primarily lens-based, her practice uses vivid color and light to explore the unheard voice via gesture, sense of place, and mood. She also enjoys creating alternative process cameraless and pinhole photographs.

Featured in Lenscratch, Karen’s project, Presence Obscured, was selected for PhotoNola's Currents at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and also PhotoLucida’s Critical Mass Top 200. Her series, See Me, was included in the Rfotofolio's Selections. Her work has been featured in over 30 exhibitions and various publications. In addition to photography, Karen enjoys curatorial work and collaborating to create group installations that foster community.

Artist Statement:

Through photography, I express my own voice and also question: What is the earth saying, the rain, the swaying live oaks, the places which contain stories within their walls?

The poem, “What if We Were Alone” by William Stafford is often in my thoughts: “In the river all night a voice floats from rock to sandbar, to log. What kind of listening can follow quietly enough? We bow, and the voice through the rapids calls all the rocks by their secret name.”

I wonder what that voice might be saying to us if only we could understand.

I am awed by the fact that trees and plants communicate with each other. Animals also have their own language. What if we could understand these conversations?

When I walk into an old church or a place where people have gathered through the years, and it is quiet--I can almost feel their conversations in my bones, and I become curious.

With my camera, I create space for the imagination to ponder what those voices might be saying to us through expressions, sense of place, or a moment in time.