Carter Wentworth

My paintings record the synthetization of what I see, a visual dialogue of the moment. I use the interaction of color to create lines, forms, shadows, and shapes. The dynamics of this interaction excites me. It is this energy that pushes me to make a painting.

For me, painting is a process of discovery. It’s not premeditated, but a reaction to the first mark I make upon the paper. I remain aware of the edges, and the painting becomes an excerpt of a larger imagined space. 

My use of repeated forms, lines, and juxtapositions is my visual “shorthand’. These forms, defined by color are my own record. The emotions and thoughts generated by these forms as they evolve, become the vision’s temporal record.

Just as in the gardens that I create, the paintings provide organically formed colored planes. This combination of new forms creates a layered curtain. It hides and reveals - the more one looks the more interactions one observes.

My painting is a synthesis of what I feel by seeing. The melding, contrasting, focusing, and blurring are the visual tools I use to evoke feelings of fear, anger, frustration or exuberance, peace, or joy. The juxtapositions of colored lines create visual tension. The viewer is invited to share the experience.

Paper and water-based paints have been my choice for many years. I assume my early experience of children’s tempera paint and crayon has had a strong influence on my desire to make things. My work in the ’70s was on cardboard and kraft paper, today I primarily use French cotton-based papers and British pigments.