Karen Safer
Artist Bio
Karen Safer is an international, award-winning California photographic artist, writer, and poet. As a native Angelino, she was given a camera and crayons at 3 and exposed to dominant California motifs: light, palm trees, the ocean, music, and vernacular architecture that helped define and influence her left-handed aesthetic. Fortunate to begin a life of travel as a pre-teen, it shaped her love of the exotic, accidental, and unusual that jiggled the lens/frame of her eye; subsequently, she has traveled and photographed in over 230 countries and territories. She was influenced by her dad who developed black & white photos in their back washroom/turned darkroom and by her mother’s thirst for knowledge and travel. She has a master’s degree in art, a career in design and architecture, and is the principal of ArtFocus International. She's been in 12 solo shows, exhibited in over 500+ international/national venues, received over 430+ awards, is in private collections, featured in over 100 publications including Who’s Who In Professional Women, and is a self-described “romantic soul” with intellectual cravings living in a digital world.
Influenced by everything, she has been honored with the Paris International Street Photography Awards 2024, ReFocus and Exposure One B&W Awards, National Photographic Society Awards, Julia Margaret Cameron FotoNostrum Awards, B&W Spider Awards, Botticelli International Prize (Florence), International COLOR awards; featured in Dodho, Docu, LENS, Women United, Spotlight, ArtTour and Artist Talk Magazine, The Holy Art, etc.; and continues exhibiting in Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest, Barcelona, Paris, London, Glasgow, Rome, Berlin, Basel, Dubai, Venice, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, etc. from California to NY, member of IAA-USA, LA Art Association, LA Center for Photography, etc.