Colour and mark-making are the vehicles by which Karen conveys themes of vulnerability, change, courage, resilience, determination, and triumph through her abstract artworks. To Karen, each colour she chooses represents a specific emotion or thought, as does the manner in which each is applied. Painting primarily in acrylics, she works spontaneously and quite quickly yet with great purpose and thought, testament to her unrelenting obsession and natural ability with colour. Paint is often applied using contrasting techniques, ranging from thin watery washes to thick impasto. Flamboyant, vivid hues and sorbet tones play harmoniously against each other, laid down in more broad planes of luminous colour before being contrasted by expressive mark-making. The resulting works are alive with character, rich in emotion and imbued with layers of deep, heartfelt story-telling.

Being diagnosed late in life with autism (at age 45 in 2021) gave Karen the answers she had been seeking all her life as to why she had always felt so different and lost. Due to the confusion that being autistic causes for Karen in regards to identifying, processing and communicating her emotions, she feels that painting is the only way in which she can completely express herself and properly process her emotions. It is her visual language, a multisensory experience involving the coming together mind, body and spirit to create an intricately complex narrative which brings her tremendous healing.

In recent years, Karen has become dedicated to supporting, uplifting, and helping people heal through sharing her own stories and experiences with trauma, complex PTSD, depression, anxiety, and life as a late-diagnosed autistic adult via her artwork. Her hope is that in doing so, others will feel seen, heard, and validated, that they aren't alone, that they can make it through tough things too. Karen has delivered landmark projects throughout her career focused around these objectives including her Spectrum art exhibition with two art colleagues in 2018, her "Parenthood" art installation for the Common Ground exhibition at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery in 2019, her pecha-kucha presentation with Fraser Coast Art Gallery and Academy at the Arts Ablaze State-wide Queensland Arts Conference in 2019, her month-long artist residency with the CQ RASN in 2020, her presentation with CQ RASN at their mid-year conference in 2020, and the creation and exhibition of her first fabric design through Shelley Pisani's Design CQ project across 2019-2023.