When arts organizations thrive, Calgary becomes all the more attractive as a culturally diverse and exciting place in which to visit, work, and live. Strong arts organizations enhance the quality of life for all citizens and indicate the overall health of our city. For this reason, Honens collaborates with local arts organizations to reinvest in the arts sector and support Canadian artisans.
In a community filled with outstanding artists, Honens has chosen to use local work for Festival and Competition images. For the 2025 Competition cycle, Honens is pleased to feature Karen Klassen.
Karen Klassen is a painter and illustrator. She enjoys working with a variety of materials, choosing each medium for the unique quality they possess. Discovering new ways of making marks keeps her engaged in the studio, she loves texture and pattern and the weird abstracted area of an image that is void of representation.
She’s worked on advertising campaigns for diverse markets including fashion brands, malls, cat food and yogurt. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, the Sunday Times Magazine, and Oprah Magazine. She’s made kids books and re-imagined Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s with The Folio Society, and created large, pretty murals to disguise ugly spaces. She’s painted portraits and illustrated live fashion events.
You can find her artwork on Karen’s website here. She’s recently partnered with Domestika to create an online, self-paced course on fashion illustrated portraits, which can be found here.