Carolyn Conrad’s recent work embraces all the approaches she has been developing over the years: painting, photography, sculpture and installation. Through a process of constructing and deconstruction she finds the essence of her chosen materials -- paper, cloth, wood, clay, plaster and of late, dryer lint. She takes a nontraditional path, for example, paintings are sewn, plaster replaces paint, constructions become photographs.


Several years ago her methodology came together with digital photography. Before arriving at a final print she constructs rural scenes making iconic architecture out of clay and wood, then paints or draws their backdrops. These naturally lit studio constructions evoke moods of romanticized isolation, about which the artist says:


“I am interested in creating human dialogues using structures rather than people and steering naturalism towards abstraction. The viewer may question, ‘Are these places emerging or disappearing? Are they idyllic or menacing? Paintings or photographs?’ My intention is to create images and objects of simplicity and containment and to elevate the ordinary to a place of significance.”


Conrad spent her childhood in New England and years around the farmlands of Long Island as her work suggests. Her early art training at BMFA, undergraduate work at Massachusetts College of Art, and graduate work at NYU helped form her minimalist and conceptual aesthetic. Now living in Sag Harbor, NY, she continues to work the concepts of “home” and memory of place.

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