“These bucolic scenes are fundamentally peaceful, yet there’s an insistent physicality to every painting: each pulsates and hums with activity. Carr paints in what has become his characteristic style: scumbled layers of acrylic paint mixed with sand. The resulting braille-like surfaces give these paintings a delicious tactility and material presence. This, in conjunction with Carr’s ingrained understanding of Hofmann’s “push and pull” color theory (he studied under Jim Gahagan, a former Hofmann student) and his confident brushwork (he uses house painting brushes), creates an integrated whole picture that is brimming with an almost kinetic energy. Take the creamy blues and yellows in Moonscape, or the pastel pinks and purples of Three Trees: in both paintings, even such soft colors take on an assertive quality, and seem to leap off the canvas and towards the viewer.” - Excerpted from the exhibition catalogue
Alice Gauvin Gallery is pleased to present “Being and Place,” a solo exhibition of recent paintings and etchings by Simon Carr, on view from May 11 - June 18, 2023. This show highlights Carr’s landscape scenes from Cherry Plain, a hamlet in upstate New York where his family has kept a residence for generations. An exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase.
Simon Carr is a painter and printmaker living and working in New York City and Rensselaer County, New York. He received an MFA from Parsons School of Design in 1981, where he studied with Leland Bell, John Heliker, and Paul Resika. Since then, he has exhibited widely at galleries and non-profit spaces. Since 2015 he has been represented by Bowery Gallery in New York City and, more recently, by Alice Gauvin Gallery in Portland, Maine. He teaches Drawing in the Art Foundations program at Borough of Manhattan Community College.