I was inspired by the late 19th and early 20th century painters whose work I so frequently encountered in my visits as a child to The Art Institute of Chicago. I was drawn to the richly subjective realism of such diverse artistic sensibilities as Cezanne, Van Gogh, Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, Homer and Eakens. I also felt a strong connection with the Bay Area Figure Painters, Park, Diebenkorn and Bischoff.
My autobiographical paintings explore a particular American time and place using photographs and the filter of memory.
The paintings focus on the experience of growing up in Chicago in an upper middle class Jewish milieu of the thirties and forties. They describe interior domestic scenes, large family gatherings and celebrations, vacations in Miami Beach and the Caribbean, and scenes in Chicago restaurants and clubs. Although these canvasses are based on black and white photographic images, I meant to capture more than a mere likeness. I intended to convey what it felt like to be present at that particular moment in time and place through a spontaneous response to the subject matter in the visual language of color, gesture and form.
I love to paint out of doors, capturing the lineaments of real landscape while letting broad painterly brushstrokes convey the emotion of the moment. My use of color intensifies the experience of springtime blossoms, for example, or the deep greens and blues of the California coast, and the colors and shapes of city streets with their unusual topography. The late Bay Area critic, Thomas Albright, generously described my landscapes as a "combination of Cezannesque structuralism with Bischoff luminosity."
Over the years I have grown into yet a second series of landscapes done in my studio. In these works I try to elicit the strength of colors and shapes I often find in my plein air paintings in a more abstract manner: they are my imaginary landscapes.
PAINTINGS
Autobiographical
Landscape
Cityscape
Imaginary Landscape
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Résumé
Statement
Current Exhibits
CONTACT
To purchase work
& for more information:
carlinx2@earthlink.net