"Peace Angel"
2023
acrylic on canvas
30" x 30"
$2000

ARTIST BIO:

Carla Golembe is an award winning painter, hands on illustrator, and teacher. She has received artist residencies from the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, GA; Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic and Kalani Honua in Hawaii. As an artist in residence in these places she presented her work to the community by giving talks, demonstrations and exhibitions.

As an illustrator Carla works in gouache. She has illustrated nineteen picture books, twelve of which she wrote. Her other illustration work includes greeting cards, book covers, fine art illustration stock images for Artville/Getty Images and Imagezoo, educational and medical projects for children and magazine work. She has received awards for her children's books from the New York Times, Parent's Choice, The American Folklore Society and PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association as well as others.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

We live on an increasingly small planet in dangerous times. The state of our world is impossible to ignore. As humans we straddle the river of our potential with one foot on each bank. Our capacity for love and compassion is equaled by our ability to turn our backs on one another and by the biases and hatreds that people have harbored since the beginning of time. The pandemic has affected us all.

And yet I continue to paint beauty, joy, connection and harmony. More than ever, I have felt the need to put beauty and hope out into the world through my art. My paintings are human and universal, multicultural and cross cultural. My intention is to create a visual haven that encourages viewers to enter my domain, rejoice in color and breathe. The figures emanate wonder and mystery. The work is evocative rather than descriptive. My interest as an artist lies in expressing how something feels rather than what it looks like. As my subject matter expands to include both my inner vision and the outer world. I find myself painting about inclusiveness and caring for the earth. I am painting hope. This is my authentic personal expression and my purpose as a painter. The world of my paintings is not "realism" but perhaps it's "magic realism". It's the reality of what makes my life worth living, what makes us human and what I want to bring into the world.

I didn't choose to be an artist, rather art chose me. Painting is my center, my meditation, my joy, my frustration. It's a dialogue, a dance with the muse. When I fall into creating a painting I often feel like a vehicle for the imagery that comes through me. I'm fascinated by that flow.

My process involves multilayered underpainting, building up rich complex layers of colors, marks and shapes which I balance with my stylized figurative imagery. Some canvases suggest ideas, other pieces come from images I want to explore. I work with the interplay of image and background, under layers and over layers, taking away, adding in. I balance the structure and figures with the spontaneity of creating marks various tools; wine corks, my fingers, bottle caps, stencils and brushes, allowing the backgrounds to evolve around the figures. Sometimes I collage and use textural mediums. In juxtaposing colors, I search for the perfect balance of hues and values that convey vibrant harmony, the perfect balance between intention and intuition.

CONTACT THE ARTIST:
[email protected]
561.400.2978
IG: carlagolembe
FB: Facebook.com/CarlaGolembe.PainterIllustrator
Web: CarlaGolembe.com