Carrie Alexander
  Objects or Subjects?

My artwork stems from my own personal experiences.  For instance, women’s issues, my female figure, the meaning of beauty and at the most basic, my emotions.  I am driven to produce art by my experiences in life and social issues that involve women.  Capturing raw emotion and conveying that emotion on canvas is my core inspiration. My paintings are like a diary for me.  It’s a way that I can work through my issues concerning women, my mind, body and soul.

My approach with creating art is to have an open mind to new techniques and concepts.  For some pieces I will have planned out exactly how I will develop the imagery and sometimes it doesn’t always work out exactly to plan, so by keeping an open mind I am able to see the image taking shape and work with it without being rigidly confined. Occasionally when I am developing a piece of artwork I don’t always plan it out in perfect detail, this is especially true when I want to express what I’m feeling at that moment, its in this way that my canvas serves as my diary.

I have a strong connection between my practice and finished art in that I utilize my random ideas as inspiration for sketches which I will either develop on there own or I sometimes will borrow techniques or concepts for pieces in progress.

The medium that I’m drawn to as a form of expression is oil painting.  I have been working with oil paints for about ten years.  I love the variety of textures and vivid colors you can receive from oil paints.  I also enjoy how well oils paints blend varying colors together.

I am not sure that I give too much thought to my pieces having much of a broad social message or meaning. I strive to first create an image of beauty and inspiration and if the viewer connects with the piece in the way I felt when creating it then I suppose they will get the message behind it, but I do strive to marry craft with concept.