Kari Tirrell

Kari Tirrell is a contemporary still life painter based in Gig Harbor, Washington, recognized for her meticulously rendered compositions that balance technical precision with wit. Raised in Huntington Beach, California, Tirrell showed an early affinity for drawing, spending years working in graphite, charcoal, and ink. Despite this proclivity, she had not considered art as a career. That changed in 2006, when a friend’s abstract work inspired her to start painting. Though realism was instinctive, she embraced the challenge of abstraction and began selling her work online. A pivotal shift came in 2008 with her discovery of soft pastels, a medium that blended her love of drawing with painting. She quickly gained recognition for her work, culminating in her designation as a Master Pastelist by the Pastel Society of America. In 2015, she returned to acrylics, which remains her preferred medium. Described by Southwest Art Magazine as “not your grandmother’s still life, ”Tirrell’s work reimagines the genre through a distinctly contemporary lens. Her paintings feature vintage tin toys, mainly from mid-century Japan. Each painting is a carefully staged tableau, infused with personality, humor, and often a cheeky twist. Titles drawn from puns and familiar idioms are integral to the work, sometimes inspiring the scene itself.