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Contact:
Name: Carolyn Marx
Email: carolynsplayhouse@yahoo.com
Bio
I studied fine arts intensively at Parsons School of Design, NYC, and have an M.A. in Creative Arts from Hunter College, NYC. I have taught art to children from pre-school thru high-school, and at the college level. My exhibitions include: Landscape Moments, one-woman show, Artists’ Workroom, N.Y.; Landscape Images, one-woman show, Frameworks, N.Y.; Small Works Invitational, Blue Mountain Gallery, N.Y.; Landscape Compositions, one-woman show, Gallery of Gramercy Park, N.Y.; Open Studio, N.Y., Landscape and Beyond; two-person show, AIA/TAI Gallery, N.Y.; Anything Goes, juried show, Sarasota Art Center, Florida; Annual Member Exhibition, juried show, Sarasota Art Center, Florida; Installation, Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota location of Florida Cancer Specialists, via Art for Hope; Where the Heart Grows, juried show, Manatee Art Center, Florida; 12 x 12, juried show, Manatee Art Center, Florida; International Photography and Digital Art Show, finalist award for 'Island Memory', Camelback Gallery; Art of the Soul, juried show, Manatee Art Center, 3rd place award for 'Breaking Away', Florida; Annual Member Exhibition, juried show, Sarasota Art Center, Florida; International Art Competition, Art Fusion Galleries St. Petersburg, honorable mention for 'Breaking Away'; my artworks are part of personal collections throughout the U.S. I am currently represented by Define Gallery in Sarasota, Florida.
Statement:
I am awestruck by ideas – color theory, chaos theory, the intricacies of the human mind, the miracle of nature. I have in fact drawn from nature for many years as a landscape artist, and I often start my mixed media work with drawings to capture the movement of trees, flowers, or other complex living things. I keep this sense of movement going as the work grows.
I find it wondrous that we perceive motion in a work of art which, for all intents and purposes, is static! I am drawn to backlit foliage and enjoy creating my own version of this phenomenon. I am fascinated by composition – and especially, to coin a phrase, ‘barely controlled chaos’. It works, it is balanced, but barely. I am thrilled when the sunlight happens to catch a translucent piece of material which to my eye becomes a dancer in the woods, or when suddenly the blue of the sky reflects on my glass, contrasts with the pigmented colors, and the composition pops!
My current body of work incorporates materials including acrylic paint, gels, plastic wrap, soap bubbles, and water. I paint, layer, scrape, draw, spray and press the pigments and water on or between glass plates. With my camera I work outdoors to create compositions that capture the day's transient atmosphere and lighting effects.
It is always a delightful surprise – I suddenly perceive a relationship, an environment, a narrative, an impossible dream-like space, the sense of a childhood memory, always a world within a world. I love the intuitive aspect of this process, and strive for it to come through in my artwork.
I work at different stages and times of day, sometimes over days and weeks. At some point, I clean off the glass and begin again, so the art materials ---like the ephemeral effects of sunlight---are fleeting.