Andrée B. Carter

My painting is equally about color, mark making, and improvisation. The work is not so much about process as about finding out what results from process.

Color has the irresistible drawing power of chocolate or opiates. It is so seductive that I can begin a composition with colors I don’t particularly like. Gradually I move into greater control of my elements. After laying down an allover ground I use an irregular grid to make hundreds, sometimes thousands of little marks on each canvas until the surface is completely covered. The grid derives from the black-and-white tile floor in the kitchen and dining room of my Italian grandparents’ sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. There is no narrative attached to this association, but it does drive my painting.

Once I lay out the grid I lose myself in the process. I apply layers and layers of gesso, acrylic, and oil over collaged elements. By weaving the pigments and textures together I integrate the surface. Layers thus appear indistinguishable from one another. The process can be compared to one or more musicians combining notes and instruments in an improvised performance.

Subtraction plays as big a role in my process as addition does. If I am not satisfied with the integration of colors and textures at a certain point, I will destroy the layers by tearing off parts of the surface, giving up the grid marks, sanding off or painting over certain areas. It doesn't matter how much I destroy or add; I am only satisfied until I feel the work resonating the way I want it to. --Andrée B. Carter

education

1995 M.F.A. Painting University of New Orleans

1992 B.A. Painting Loyola University, New Orleans

Cum Laude

Certificate of Achievement in Visual Art

1986 Art History Tulane University, Florence, Italy

awards /honors

2017 stARTup Fair LA, A Contemporary Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA

Juried exhibition, recipient for Gallery 825

2016 Women Painters West, Point of View, Thousand Oaks, CA

3rd Place winner, Juror, Jim Zver

Women Painters West exhibition, Lamperouge Gallery, Brewery Art Complex,

2nd Place winner, Juror, Ron Pekar

2012 BAU Institute , Otranto, Italy, Painting Fellowship

1997 Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Painting Fellowship

Arts Council of New Orleans, Percentage for Arts Program Recipient

Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA, Juror’s Award

1994 New Orleans National Painting Competition, curated by William Fagaly,

Assistant curator, New Orleans Museum of Art

solo exhibitions

2017 Ann Connelly Fine Art, Baton Rouge, LA

Matter and Texture, Beyond the Lines Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA

2015 Gallery IMA ,Seattle, WA

2012 Heriard Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2011 Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA

2010 Heriard Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2009 Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA

Urban Cells, Heriard Cimino Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2007 Intersections, Heriard-Cimino Gallery, New Orleans

Deconstructing Happiness, Patricia Cameron Gallery, Seattle

2006 Temptations, Gallery 110, Seattle

2004 Seduction, Sylvia Schmidt Gallery, New Orleans

2003 White Chocolate, AT31, Seattle

2002 B