An architect by training, Karina had been dabbling in the arts from an early age. In high school, she tested her thespic talents onstage while designing sets and making props on the side. In college, she chose to take up architecture. She topped the architecture board then worked as project manager for a renowned architectural and interior design company.
A restless soul, she also had stints in marketing and direct selling. Eventually, she decided to put up a frame shop at the family residence in Merville, Paranaque in the process discovering the world of painting.
“But I never really abandoned architecture,” she clarifies. “It is the foundation for many of the concepts and ideas I have in my art.” She has produced a number of works using techniques honed in her practice as architect with such titles as Post and Lintel, Shears and Moment and Pyramids, as well as her Hometown series of works.
A peripatetic traveler, she has also visited the ancient cities of Ankor Wat in Cambodia, Ayutthaya in Thailand, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, parts of the eastern coast of China, as well as the former Portuguese colony of Macau.
Early this year, Karina underwent an important transition in her life as an artist. Her exhibit entitled “Spring” that featured 45 new works in exhilarating colors and exuberant lines and forms, she decided to go into painting full time. “Finally, my creative spirit is free. The voice of the inner judge is now much softer so I can paint spontaneously. There is also no more tug of war in me. I have stopped wondering whether I am doing right leaving architecture for painting. Now there is affirmation, confidence, acceptance, and great joy whenever I finish a painting” she says.