Karine Parker-Lemoyne BIOGRAPHY

Karine is a very creative French-American visual artist, curator, educator, social & emotional coach, and community developer who believes in the power of creativity and Art to make this world a better place. She lives in Houston, Texas.

She explored art techniques at the “Beaux-Arts” of Amiens (academic French Art School) for several years when she was a teenager. She developed her artistic and therapeutic talents through mindfulness and therapeutic art workshops in France, England, and the US. Her life in London awakened her insatiable want for expressing her soul through Art. and social entrepreneurship. 

Karine Parker moved to Houston in 2007 and started producing international and outreach art projects aiming at developing bridges of understanding between communities. By adding music, writing, performance, and other media to her projects, she has created a sensory 360-degree environment for appreciating art and intercultural dialogue. Her dedication to a greater purpose of the community transcends traditional formats and breathes new life into artistic outreach and creative expressions. In 2008, she founded the RougeArt movement. In 2011, she curated independently “Go West 1,” a project that was presented at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris in the framework of “2010: International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures,” for which UNESCO was the leading agency. In 2011, she started including social and emotional, and self-care components in her work. 

One of her recent major projects as a program director, curator, and community developer is the 2012-2013 citywide “Open the Door” public art project, inviting the public to imagine life as a myriad of gateways, leading to meaningful encounters and possibilities. For this program, she created public and private partnerships with more than 50 organizations which allowed French and Texan artists, students, professors, and volunteers to create 60 artistic pivoting doors that were installed in 19 different locations throughout the city including locations in underserved areas.  Open the Door became an opportunity for diverse communities and artists to come together and to inspire each other, and to dare to use their creativity in a new format and new locales. By offering a form of expression that embodies communities’ spirit and making it accessible to the public, OPEN THE DOOR took people’s consciousness outside of their house, of their office, and their cars, to see the world beyond walls and welcoming our neighbor through open doors. The program also showed student artists — some of whom were as young as 11 — that their art and creativity could affect the world in a positive way.

Developing programs that use creativity and art as a tool to break down boundaries and build human and social connections, gave her the opportunity to witness the ability of the youth to serve a greater purpose in the community and to bring innovative ideas that can transform the world around them. This leads her now to work with children as well as high schools and university students in order to invite them to reimagine and improve public spaces with the objective to strengthen the connection between people and the places they share. She named that program “From A Space To A Place,” to invite the youth to transform a space that does not have any meaning for them into a place they want to invest in and to grow because they feel they belong. The program is being implemented in diverse schools/community centers across Houston.

The Be the Peace - Be the Hope collaborative that she founded in 2015, uses proprietary curricula based on art, mindfulness, leadership, psycho-social development, and social & emotional education. These programs help develop important life skills (including resilience, social awareness, self-management, creative thinking, self-efficacy, responsible decision-making) and the youth’s ability to optimize their capabilities in challenging environments, from impoverished neighborhoods in Houston to refugee camps in West Africa, Iraq, India, and beyond. Her community and educational work lead the youth to reimagine and improve public spaces, improve their life and leadership skills as well as their social contributions while solidifying the fabric of their communities.

She volunteers as a mentor with several organizations including Newgen Peacebuilders and the Houston Galveston Institute.

Karine has been published in 2018 with Noel Bezette-Flores, in the Book “REFUGEE EDUCATION – Integration and Acceptance of Refugees in Mainstream Society,” (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning published by Higher Education Teaching & Learning and Emerald Publishing) and for the past 4 years in ArtHouston magazine.

In 2019, Karine has been recognized as one of the humanitarians of the year by Rotary International and is the recipient of the Rotary International Award for Excellence in Service to Humanity.

In 2020, she received the Service Award from the Alliance for Multicultural Services. 

Be the Peace – Be the Hope was featured in 2017 on a nationally syndicated program, the CBS Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Hidden Heroes.

Her academic training in business management and in the arts, allowed her to speak to various audiences and to give numerous speeches to CEOs of big corporations as well as professors of high schools and universities (Including the University of Houston Downtown, Lone Star College, Rice University.) 

Her work can be found in various private and public collections, in France and in the U.S.
Her past exhibits in Texas include in Houston: the Williams Tower, the Jung Center, the Houston Public Library World languages Center, RougeArt series, KC Art Gallery, the Beginnings Art Gallery, Talento Bilingüe de Houston; Gallery M Squared, Total Plazza, Continental, and Allen Center Art Galleries, the French Alliance; and in Marfa: The International Woman’s Foundation.
Her past exhibits in Paris include the City Hall of Paris, UNESCO, and Dorothy’s Gallery.

In 2010, Karine was an artist in residency at the Houston Baptist University.

Karine has held many creative workshops and was an artist demonstrator at the Bayou City Art Festival in 2009 and at NAMTA in 2016 in Houston. 

 

AN INVITATION TO MOVEMENT

RougeArt - Karine Parker