Age: 20
Occupation: Student, writer, painter, gallery assistant
Location: Brooklyn, NY
You just had your first show on January 25th, how was that?
Well I had my first solo show at age 18 in my hometown Greenville, South Carolina - but my ex boyfriend's parents owned the space, so… I'm not sure if that counts. The Williamsburg Art and Historical Society's exhibition on January 25th was surreal. I was the youngest of the 76 artists represented. This caused most of the older artists to develop a sort of paternal instinct over my future career and myself. They showered me with advice, connections, and support. I guess they felt like they were part of the very beginning of it all, and they remember a similar time in their own lives. All of my dearest friends showed up to the opening and witnessed the moment when my painting sold / I had a minor heart attack.
What are your favourite mediums?
Oil paint. My preferred brand is Gamblin from Portland Oregon. Printmaking is also one of my great loves but it's hard to practice without expensive materials and studio space.
How do you describe your painting style?
It's a work in progress. I hope that my style grows into something vastly different that what it is now. I feel young, vulnerable and naive. My paintings are bright, idyllic and mildly abstract scenes of youth made with a technically trained hand. My hard earned skill is attributed to a boarding school for the arts I attended in high school. It was basically an art boot camp - our teachers focused on craftsmanship above all else. I was taught in a strict, formulated way to paint and that there IS a wrong way to do it. While I will be forever indebted to my training there, at the time I resented those silly analytical calculations. I look up to Robert Rauschenberg, Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, and James Ensor for their ability to diverge from their classical upbringing to create images beyond universal aesthetics! I'm trying to move towards that. Yet, I find myself cringing whenever I don't use layer values correctly. Sigh.
Do you get inspiration from living in NYC?
I know it's a cliche to say that "art is everywhere", but… art is everywhere in Brooklyn. I can't go one day without finding some sort of resonating image.
Top 5 NYC spots:
5th floor of the MoMA
St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral on 5th Avenue and 53rd Street
The L train
Neue Galerie (Austrian museum full of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele *swooning*)
Besides painting is there anything else you want to pursue?
Yes! I am an art history major. One day I would like to be a professor. There's nothing I enjoy more than ranting about art. I actually have a rule - I can't take people who I want to impress to any museum, because they'll leave convinced I am psychotic. I really don't shut up. So to get paid for it would be real nice.
What do you hope to do by the end of 2014?
This year I am focused on raising money to study in Italy over the summer. Afterwards I plan on hiking a bit through Spain towards the Santa Costanza Cathedral. This money will come from selling painting and working whenever I have the time.
Find Caroline here:
No comments:
Post a Comment