THE STUDIO
Based in Thetford Mines, Quebec, KQK is a creative studio focusing on ceramics and decorative objects. Initially an independent fashion atelier, the studio evolved into a mulidicisplinary practice, upholding its artistry and craftmanship while also reinforcing its organic language.
Very much inspired by the contrast between soft brutalism and nature romanticized, KQK’s founder and designer Karen Quirion constantly redefines her craft, innovating with techniques to convey the implicit poetry she sees and cherishes. Through the deconstruction of shapes and the experimentation of colors and materials to translate emotions, Karen plunges us into the subtle elegance of a gloomy fantastical garden, with dramatic, whimsical and poetic bodies of work.
Karen's work is available at:
Vessels + Sticks, Toronto, Canada
LES Collection, New York, USA
Ink + Porcelain, Oakland, USA
Claude Home, Los Angeles, USA
THE ARTIST
Karen Quirion is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist
based in Thetford Mines, Quebec. She has a formal background in fashion from the Campus
Notre-Dame-de-Foy in Quebec and the Istituto Europeo
di Design in Milan. She is the founder and solo practitioner of her studio, KQK.
Focusing on both one-of-a-kind art pieces,
she started working with ceramics in 2020 and it
has now become an integral part of her work.
Karen is a self-taught ceramicist working
essentially with clay. All of her pieces are
hand-built through techniques of coiling,
pinching and slab building. Exploring the
boundaries of rigidity in their nature, her ceramics
are the result in an experiment of deconstruction through organic forms.