Karlee Rawkins

Artist Profile

Based on the north coast of New South Wales, award winning painter Karlee Rawkins’ vibrant images of flora and fauna reflect the artist’s deep fascination with the natural world and highlight the role creatures play within our imagination. Informed in part by the lush diversity of her local ecosystem, Rawkins’ works depict a ceaselessly verdant world full of growth and possibility.

Attracted to the ways in which pattern and line intersect with form and colour, Rawkins’ skilfully integrates discernible representation with subtle, intuitive abstraction. There is a wildness to her mark-making and a bold, celebratory use of colour resulting in portraits that are transformative, other worldly and profoundly ritualistic. This dexterous sense of composition and lively mark making is captivating, revealing both child-like veneration and sophisticated appreciation for the form and character of her subjects.

Taking inspiration from the myriad global narratives that feature creatures from the plant and animal kingdoms, her dynamic acrylics on canvas bring to the fore the enduring importance of cultural storytelling as a means of processing humanities relationship to nature. Echoing the designs and motifs of ancient Indian fabrics, medieval tapestries, folk art imagery or even the pages of a well loved picture book, the totemic characters Rawkins’ conjures are full of powerful meanings and symbolic potential.

I use animal imagery in my work as a metaphor for human emotions and experiences. The animals are distorted and flattened, often combining with pattern to create intentionally ambiguous compositions. I aim to emphasize the vulnerability and awkwardness of my subject and challenge a viewers recognition and sense of association.
Artist Statement - Karlee Rawkins

'Her intuitive painting style, guided by a studied understanding of form and anatomy, transforms these creatures into enigmatic presences. She captures just enough detail to distinguish a dingo from a dog, for instance, but dissolves her creatures into their surroundings, blending fur and plumage into riverbeds and sky. This fusion of animal and environment is central. Rawkins’ sensitivity—to her inner world, her family, and the broader environment—imbues every piece. Her paintings are as much about her creative process and her mental state as they are about the animals themselves.'
Excerpt of catalogue essay by Kate Mcauley 2025

'Conjuring up a menagerie of curious creatures, exquisite foliage and sensual forms, Karlee Rawkins’ paintings are at once alluring and quizzical. Depicting a realm neither real nor fully imagined, her images invite us to glimpse an alternate reality in which myth, museology and childhood storytelling coalesce. Housed within the loose layers of her intentionally transparent brush-marks are deliberate suggestions of hope and possibility.'
Excerpt of catalogue essay by Phe Luxford 2022

Watch: Karlee Rawkins - 'Never Neverland' in the studio

Watch: Karlee Rawkins 'Never Never River' Artist Talk February 2015

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Artist CV

Karlee Rawkins trained at Southern Cross University and has exhibited extensively since 1994. In 2003 she was the recipient of The Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship and in 2004 she held a five month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. She has been a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize (2020) and won the Margaret Olley Commendation Award in 2019. She has also been a finalist in the Clayton Utz Award (2019, 2018), the Korea-Australia Arts Foundation (2016) and the Prometheus Art Award (2007, 2005). Her work is held in collections including that of Maitland Regional Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of NSW.

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