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An
artist for over four decades, Kathy Carlson draws heavily on the natural
splendor of the Caribbean islands. Working full time as a high school math
teacher in the states, she looked forward to her annual summer sailing trips
through the islands, where she sought out landscapes untouched by seaside
resorts. Wherever she went, she sketched. The sketches became oil paintings. On
one of her many trips to St. Thomas, she was hired to teach at Antilles School.
After two years at the school, in 1994 she concluded her twenty-five years as an
educator. The Virgin Islands became her home to explore daily. Carlson had
studied life drawing and painting at the Arts Student League in New York and at
the University of Buffalo. Carlson remembers dreaming of retiring from education
and the freedom it would give her to devote to her first love--painting. After
more than a decade in St. Thomas, Carlson describes her current life as" living
my dream. Now everyday is a learning day for me as I struggle with the problems
inherent with each work in progress. I am fully involved in my painting, in the
hard and joyful work of learning, in creating and in communicating my
experiences and views, in making art."
Most of Carlson's paintings
capture a way of life that has passed in the Virgin Islands as it has developed,
but it is a way of life still lived down the island chain. Her old boats, her
markets and her people represent the rich heritage of the West Indies. Carlson's
dramatic works have great emotional appeal with both locals and visitors. She
adds," I prefer to have my art speak for itself, however, my recent experimental
mixed media paintings seem to have generated questions concerning my changing
style. While I enjoy creating figurative works of islanders at work and play,
seascapes and landscapes, the abstract works simply come from the same
inspiration, my personal experience. Whether it is a representational work, or
an abstract one, I incorporate line, shape, space, form, and light and texture.
Texture has become very important. I have not changed styles. I have added a new
one."
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