Collage artist Karen McCarthy juxtaposes structured and ordered images with those that are amorphous and sometimes obscured. She begins each work on either paper or fabric using a variety of painting or printmaking techniques, including paste painting, dye transfer printing and gelatin plate printing. She then incorporates the painted or printed images into a collage and uses additional colored pencil or stitching to complete the piece.

Themes from nature are central to each collage, which also include obvious and more subtle references to the natural landscape and the artist's love of color, light and movement.