Karen Hendrickx is a visual artist from Belgium. Since 2017 she has been working on a series combining painting, dance and movement, for which she created the performance 'Sketches of Emotion' together with the Belgian choreographer Justine Copette. In this performance, dancer and painter play off of one another, Hendrickx’s abstract paintings spontaneously created in the moment.
Emotion is always central to Hendrickx's work. In this way she always tries to live through and intensify her subject, rather than depicting it exactly. While working, Hendrickx uses her medium in a gestural, spontaneous way, literally trying to get into the movement. This way of working is strongly influenced by her collaboration with the choreographer Justine Copette. Her choice of materials are diverse, ranging from charcoal, chalk, Chinese ink, bistre, acrylic to oil paint, which she applies to a variety of surfaces; paper, canvas, even plexiglass.
For her performances she is mainly inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock, Niki De Saint Phalle, Yves Klein and Trisha Brown. This is mainly expressed in the idea of 'the act in itself', without presupposing a certain result. Further sources of inspiration are the work of Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kadinsky, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Mitchel, Cy twombly, etc…
Finally, she likes to create work in public space in order to introduce the public to her work in a different way.