Growing up on the east coast of Yorkshire as a happy beachcomber, Karen Stamper was naturally attracted to paint-peeling wooden boats, gaudy plastic scraps and brightly coloured fishing floats. As a child she was free to wander, explore and collect. It is these boatyard memories that have become her subject and endless inspiration.
Stamper combines found paper with layers of painted paper and water-based paint to create an integrated surface. This is constructed and deconstructed many times; scratched, sanded, repainted, recut, until a patchwork of urban marks and worn surfaces bond together. Found marks and edges become the subject and the richness of the surface allows her to move into new compositions that breaks free from conventional shapes. As the collage work has developed it has become increasingly physical, moving from paper to wooden panels.
It is the touch of the human hand and the accidental marks left behind from practical fixings that excite Stamper: how materials have been used to decorate, protect, hide blemishes, revive, mend and patch, often over many years. These imperfect marks, scratches, lines, remnant, patterns and dribbles become her painting vocabulary as the surface reveals its own story.
Stamper now lives and works in Cambridge.