Karen Holt | Featured Artist Summer 2025

Karen Holt
Artist
profile Image captured by Henry Lisowski
Karen Holt is a Bolton-based artist and the creative force behind The Barn Studio, a welcoming artistic space that reflects her love for colour, texture, and expression. Known for her richly layered work that often blends abstract forms with landscape inspiration, Karen brings a warmth and authenticity to everything she creates. Her studio, nestled in the heart of Bolton, has become a nurturing hub for local artists and art lovers alike—somewhere between gallery, workspace, and creative escape.
Karen is one of the exhibiting artists in this year’s “Harvest of Visions” Summer Exhibition at BL6 Studios. Her contribution adds a grounded yet emotionally resonant voice to the collection—a visual conversation between memory, place, and the act of making. Whether she’s working with paint, mixed media, or found objects, her work invites viewers to slow down, explore, and feel.
Prints are available via newartgallery.co.uk, and originals from studio The Barn Studio Gallery
All visits are welcome by appointment.

Tempest Diablo
A masterful original watercolour that captures the raw, unfiltered energy of a horse in full motion. With windswept mane and tail, the dark figure cuts across a muted, sandy background with urgency and grace.
There’s a tension in the body,leaning forward, hooves lifted. A suggestion of not just movement, but determination and spirit.
Karen’s subtle use of earthy tones and delicate washes gives the piece a weathered, almost ethereal quality, while the dynamic pose delivers a punch of power.
Perfect for a calming interior with a natural palette, or as a centrepiece in a collector’s study or hallway, this painting brings with it a quiet storm—alive, elegant, and unforgettable.
Artwork Title: Tempest Diablo
Artist: Karen Holt
Medium: Watercolour on paper
Size: 72cm x 54cm
Price: £680
Presentation: Framed behind clarity art glass ready to hang

Tempest Fire Rocket
A one-of-a-kind, hand-embellished artwork drawn from her original equine painting. This dynamic piece captures the raw power and freedom of a galloping horse, its mane and tail unleashed in a storm of fiery brushwork.
Rich with siennas, rusts, and flashes of indigo and charcoal, the textures are instinctive, layered, and full of life.
This isn’t just a reproduction—it’s a unique creation in its own right, lovingly reworked by the artist to give it fresh energy and individual character. Perfect for a statement wall in a home with warmth and movement, or an office space that celebrates bold, spirited thinking.
Artwork Title: Tempest Fire Rocket
Artist: Karen Holt
Medium: Embellished Giclée Print – one of a kind
Size: 84cm x 56cm
Price: £280
Presentation: ready to hang

Wild Lion
A bold, expressive portrayal of power and presence. With textured brushwork and a fiery palette of ochres, deep browns, and white highlights, the lion’s mane bursts with motion and energy.
It feels as though the animal is emerging from the canvas. Majestic, untamed, and unflinching.
A striking piece that commands attention, Wild Lion is ideal for a contemporary living space, creative studio, or office that values strength, confidence, and individuality. Not just art—it’s attitude.
Artwork Title: Wild Lion
Artist: Karen Holt
Medium: Mixed Media On Paper
Size: 66cm x 81cm
Price: £620
Presentation: Framed behind clarity art glass ready to hang

Match Night
Capturing the electric energy of the Bolton Wanderers stadium under floodlights, seen from a high, cinematic viewpoint above Horwich.
The painting glows with anticipation, with cool blues and warm urban lights bouncing across the scene—while expressive strokes in the night sky echo movement, noise, and atmosphere.
This isn’t just a football ground—it’s a beacon of community, memory, and pride. Perfect for a fan’s home, a modern office, or a space that celebrates local identity. A love letter to the game, and the town that lives for it.
Artwork Title: Match Night
Artist: Karen Holt
Medium: Embellished Giclée Print – one of a kind
Size: 66cm x 54cm
Price: £280
Presentation: Framed behind clarity art glass ready to hang
Take a look at the others exhibiting this summer
Franki Beddows | Featured Artist Summer 2025
I paint to get lost. It’s the moment of flow—where shapes, shadows and textures start to whisper—that keeps pulling me back to the canvas. In those early layers of acrylic, faces, figures, and strange little creatures begin to reveal themselves. I never go looking for...
Patrick Taylor | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Both these pieces were manually drawn on-screen (by hand, no filters or digital assistance). Patrick Taylor is a visual artist now based in Bolton, working across painting, drawing, and design. A graduate of Manchester College of Art & Design, his creative...
Rob Edmondson | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Rob Edmondson is a Lancashire-based landscape artist with a deep-rooted passion for capturing the shifting moods of the British countryside. Working predominantly in acrylics, his work draws inspiration from the wild moorlands, coastal paths, and quiet valleys...
Janette Byrne | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Janette Byrne (Jb Art) is a local artist who graduated with a Masters in Fine Art at the University of Greater Manchester. She has exhibited widely in the UK and has had several works accepted to go through to the Royal Academy Summer exhibition … and has Sold...
Julia Preston | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Based in Bolton, Julia Preston is the artist behind SulikoSoul — a creative practice rooted in bold colour, layered texture, and emotional connection to place. Working across acrylic painting, mixed media, pyrography, and anodised aluminium jewellery, her work...
John Bentley | Artist In Residence
Blending photography with painterly textures, digital layering, and, at times, physical embellishment, Bentley’s images straddle the surreal and the real. He is drawn to ambiguity, tension, and the quiet power of presence. His pieces are not designed to flatter...
Julia Entwistle | Artist In Residence
Julia Entwistle is a contemporary British artist based in Lancashire, whose evocative landscapes offer more than just a view — they offer a feeling. Working primarily in oils and acrylics, Julia’s impressionistic style is guided by atmosphere and emotion rather than...
Peter Arkwright | Artist In Residence
Peter Arkwright is a Lancashire painter whose work shifts boldly between the physical and the emotional, the seen and the sensed. Whether portraying the raw energy of a rugby scrum or the solitary majesty of a Highland peak, Peter’s paintings are rooted in...
Tina Hurst Artist In Residence
an abstract artist based at BL6 Studios whose practice is rooted in natural colour, sustainability, and intuitive design. With a professional background in architecture, fashion, and fine art, Tina now channels her energy into creating organic pigments, botanical...
Jackie Williams | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Profile Image of Jackie by Ian Fletcher Jackie Williams is a Lancashire-based painter whose work explores the shifting energies of landscape and light. Working primarily in acrylic, she creates expressive, textural pieces that move between abstraction and realism —...
Kirsten Todd | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Kirsten Todd is a Lancashire-based intuitive artist and founder of Art at Vixen, known for her emotionally charged abstracts and divine feminine portraiture. With a BA in Graphic Design and over 30 years in the creative industry, Kirsten has painted...
Julia Uttley | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Profile image of Julia courtesy Don Tonge Julia Uttley is a Bolton‑based photographer whose work reveals a deep connection to the region’s industrial heritage and moorland landscapes. Born and raised in Lancashire’s Fylde region, she was drawn back north in 2015,...
Mike Lord | Featured Artist Summer 2025
Mike Lord is a Lancashire-based oil painter whose landscapes are both familiar and fantastical—echoing the moors, fields, and canals that surround his rural home. He came to painting later in life after careers in law, counselling, and mediation, discovering a passion...