Elizabeth Carrel




Table Trick
3 x 9 feet

My work is an intricate combination of my artistic interests, formal intentions and associative meanings. Within the range of formal invention are themes and concerns of poetry and literature. While Matta and the lesser known Robert Barnes have had an overall profound influence on me, I also love the paint handling of Rubens, Goya and Manet.

My work develops out of my own psychology and autobiography and my own engagement with literature and art. These sources are used in a construction and destruction of form until I come up with my own poetry. My paintings sometimes come from laying out my ideas beforehand and sometimes from starting with nothing but loose gestures. If they begin without a drawing I try to create a formal skeleton while the theme becomes more tangible to me. While inventing the forms, I am not concerned about conventionally resolving them, but more concerned in realising them through every aspect of feeling which has stemmed from the story.

I am interested in creating a microcosm that has a believable actuality and sense of truth, but cannot always be seen in ordinary life. I am interested in creating an analogue to reality that lies inside established vision and contains illogical elements of memory invention. At the same time that my paintings are an analogue and exfoliation of reality, they also connect the outer world with our inner existence. I am interested in creating an mysterious world of metaphysical and perceptual awareness.