About the Exhibit:
Sometimes there is magic in the studio if I just let the genie catch me working.

Created during a period of personal sadness, social division, and a war, I sought solace in creation, hoping to ignite bits of light in the darkness.  I was unsure of my direction but tried to remain open to the process and allow the paintings to reveal themselves through experimentation and exploration. I used different ways of starting paintings, tried new media including collage elements and pastels rubbed into texture, played with hard edged designs, mixed oil paint with acrylic, layered on lots of texture and sanded back to underlying shapes and colors—whatever the painting seemed to need.  The mysterious transmutations often surprised me. I hope you are entranced by what you see. -Carol Dickerson

Artist Statement:

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”—— excerpt from Mary Oliver’s poem “Franz Marc’s Blue Horses”

My intention is to create images that draw the viewer into a mysterious but somehow familiar world through the universal language of proportion, balance, and harmony.

It begins with despoilment—creating a mess on a pristine surface of canvas, paper, or wood.  Random lines in charcoal or drippy paint, automatic writing, textured mediums, stenciled patterns, and splashes of color.  Then the process of covering and uncovering, addition and subtraction, over and over again as I seek a resolution of the problems I have created. Pattern, texture, veiled shapes, and colors appear and disappear.  My basic question is always “does it please me?”  Some combination of color, shapes, lines that I am drawn to—undergirded by knowledge of design principles and color harmony—creates the feeling I seek.  Occasionally this resolution happens rather quickly, but  more often it takes layers and layers. The trick is recognizing the good things that show up by accident.

About the Artist:

Carol Dickerson left a career as a college librarian in 2012 to pursue painting full time.   She studied with a number of Colorado artists including Chris Alvarez, Lance Green, and Karen Roehl, and participated in workshops  led by New Mexico artists Gwen Fox and Virginia Cobb.  More recently, Carol participated in online classes with Nancy Hillis, Nicholas Wilton, and Melinda Cootsona. Her paintings have been shown in juried group shows at Cottonwood Center for the Arts, Modbo, The Manitou Art Center, Kreuser Gallery, and G44 Gallery in Colorado Springs, as well as D’art Gallery in Denver. In 2017, G44 Gallery and The Machine Shop hosted her first solo shows. “Sleight of Hand”, a show of new work, opens at Surface Gallery in Colorado Springs April 7, 2023

Parking available lot behind building on Pikes Peak and 28th.