Karen Bennett Varsha

Artist Statement

My work represents a new direction in my photographic vision. After years of capturing people and objects in various situations of daily life, the restrictions resulting from the pandemic on movement and human interaction drove my search for a new, more controllable perspective. I have always been fascinated by the endless colors and textures of flowers, and if I could not be outside or around people, I could certainly get to the wholesale florist for my subjects. I had experimented with shooting flowers in a dark, intimate space three years earlier; simple flower arrangements in complete darkness, thus allowing me to play with light levels that focus on those colors and textures.

I loved being able to use flowers to create color palettes and forms, and the different vases used allowed further variations as I manipulated the light levels. The results bring to mind images collected at Monet’s iconic gardens in Giverny during a six-month residence in France for my husband’s work. The process pulled me in as I developed a whole new body of work that I can share with others, drawing them into the beauty and calm of a simple flower arrangement.

Karen Varsha is an Atlanta-based art photographer whose interdisciplinary practice focuses on painterly portraits of floral arrangements which she creates.

Karen’s interest in photography began at an early age when she received a camera for use at summer camp in Jackson, Mississippi. She continued taking photos, and while an Art major at the University of Georgia created an income stream as a portrait photographer. Master classes with Mary Ellen Mark and Joyce Tennyson inspired her continuing creative development.

She began her professional life working in the interior design trade, and upon retirement turned to her true avocation, photography. Karen uses her knowledge and intuition regarding how people live and work in her photographic production and recognizes the need for beauty in each of our lives.

A new phase in Karen’s photographic career began when she opened a studio at Atlanta’s highly regarded Goat Farm Art Center, but in 2020 her husband Bob’s cancer diagnosis, closely followed by the covid crisis and quarantine forced upon her a new way of working. She channeled her emotions into creating dynamic floral arrangements and photographing them in order to share with others the joy and hope for the future she felt within herself.

With her husband's positive prognosis and the disturbance of quarantine behind her, Karen has found an audience for her Floral Still Lifes; exhibiting in the Atlanta area at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, the Swan Coach House Gallery, LM Gallery, and the Atlanta Photography Group Airport Show. Karen’s work is available for purchase at her website karenvarshaphotography.com and she posts regularly on Instagram @karenvarshaphotography.