Karen LeSage

Karen LeSage was born in eastern Connecticut. She attended Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where she studied fine art and couture. Receiving her B.F.A in 1987, LeSage graduated with high honors, and moved to New York City to pursue a career in fashion design. Spending the next ten years in New York, LeSage made a name for herself in the music, television and fashion world as both a costume and clothing designer.

In 2002, the birth of her son brought LeSage back to Connecticut as a year round resident. It is here in the Litchfield Hills that she began painting full time, drawing inspiration from her surroundings. Karen starts all her work in the plein air tradition- outside- and then returns to her studio “where she can approach her subject from a more abstract perspective”. In the words of Dan Shaw (co-editor of RuralIntelligence.com) “she presents the serenity of the rural landscape in a modern way—the soul of Henry David Thoreau crossed with the eye of Mark Rothko. These transcendent landscapes are both traditional and avant garde: they are literally and figuratively, a breath of fresh air”.