Recently on view at Urban Eats (opens the artist archive, Carolyn is 1st)

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www.CarolynBertrandHodges.art

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Purchase Miss Carolyn’s book!
Exploring Contemporary Art
A formal essay on the exploration of contemporary art by Houston artist Carolyn Bertrand Hodges, with select paintings by the artist.

S E R R A N O   G A L L E R Y
2000 Edwards St.
Houston, Texas 77007
713 724 0709
www.serranogallery.com

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

I wish it to be known why I use the medium of ink to create my art.

For many long years, I painted with oils. Focusing with intent on subject matter with a realism we are all familiar with and relate to in our personal experience. However, now, the pen is more handy for me than painting.

With a pen, there is a flow. With a pen, there is no clean-up as with paint, and there is certainly no tediousness … indeed there is a timelessness. With the fine point of a pen, multi-affects may be visualized. There can be surprise, discovery, and inventiveness. And, in my art, no monotonous design!

Now I approach my art in a different manner than I did in the past. Subject matter, or things which we are all familiar with remain and comes partly from memory.

However, as I draw, in a randomized sort of way, and like in a dream, unforeseen images appear consciously. Dependent on this unconsciousness, as with dreams, or imagination as some people call it, the artist is faced with the unpredictable until an image pops out. That’s it, this is what it means … and after all, much better than I could have thought up, and certainly a lot more fun!

Like in dreams, the images may be a mystery. The whole unconscious is a mystery to most of us. Like the unconscious, we can dream up images with our art. Also, as with meditation, we may transcend beyond the ordinary when we create art … making art as a whole; The great “I am that … I am.”

There is a ceaseless flow of imagery, and with such spirit, things don’t matter, for detail, memory, etc., are part of the whole, and all-embracing.

~ Carolyn Bertrand Hodges

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ABOUT

“Miss Carolyn” is a longtime fan of First Saturday Arts Market. A few years ago, I interviewed her and found her personality to be spot on with the other artists at the market. After many conversations and artistic outings, I continue to include her random bits of knowledge in my arts column, Art Valet, in The Leader Newspaper.