Made with Sparkle

WILL CARPENTER

Suburban Realism

ARTIST STATEMENT

 

Houses stage our domestic lives. Sometimes their walls conceal the workings within. Sometimes their facades leak visual revelations of the inner goings-on. I painted these houses in a manner that alludes to this truth; more happens within a house than what the casual eye observes from the outside. My eyes and ears tell me that many residences in Marion house much unrest. At night I hear the strife. In the day I take walks through the back-streets of Marion and see litter, neglected yards, and decrepit houses. But even when the yelling dies down and the rubbish washes away these urban dwellings still belie turmoil. So that my paintings resonate with this environment so common in Grant county, I inject the images with painterly brushstrokes, pump up the color contrasts, and stir the skies with my painting knife until they seem to seethe, burn, or explode. I paint, paint, and repaint until the image speaks to this dichotomy; quiet and stable structures house dynamic and intense human interactions.

 

 

My paintings take their lead from several movements and artists but most prominently Henry Ossawa Tanner inspires my paint quality, Edward Hopper directs some of the mood and lighting that lands on my houses, and JMW Turner, Constable, and the Abstract Expressionists influence my skies.