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. Being 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 washroom/turned darkroom, and by her mother’s thirst for knowledge and travel. She has a master’s degree in art cum laude, a career in design and architecture, and is principal of ArtFocus International. She's been in 14 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 TIFA, Tokyo International Foto Awards 2025 PISPA (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, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, etc. from California to New York, member of IAA-USA, LA Art Association, LA Center for Photography, etc.