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Carson Collins
Sarasota, FL
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artist works
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about the artist
I've been working on The Ocean Series for more than a quarter of a century. I guess you could say that this conflation of a traditional marine sunset with a color-field painting, something that originally crossed my mind sometime back in 1978, has turned out to be a fairly fertile idea for me. Call it a Remodernist approach to the color-field tradition if you like, but I'm not trying to deconstruct anything, fit into any category, or prove any theories. The ocean, with its infinite variety and constant flux, is a motif that never ceases to fascinate me; and to say that this image of the far horizon and the dying sunlight has broad metaphoric powers would be to belabor the obvious. My two greatest influences as a painter have been Mark Rothko and Claude Monet; in a way, my paintings are only a kind of simple-minded formal synthesis of the two. At least, I hope they're that good.
Once in a while a commercial gallery will invite me to do an exhibition. My first solo was at Sarah Rentschler Gallery, NYC, in 1980. The most recent one (as of this writing) was January 2003 at Sekanina Contemporary Art Gallery in Ferrara, Italy. I had a good show at Norro Gruppen Konstgallerie, Stockholm, Sweden, in 1991. In between there were about a dozen others, spread out over the past 20 years; but seldom in the same place twice...
Its been a lonely path. I'm nomadic, never stay in one place for more than a year or two; don't have any possessions except for what I can carry on the iron birds. So far I've lived in 7 of the USA States and 6 other countries. I prefer warm places, but anywhere with a left coast will do - for a while. Of course I always have to be near the motif. Yet I don't like painting outdoors. I often work in buildings that have been, for one reason or another, abandoned. I can't seem to paint effectively for more than about 4 hours a day. The rest of the time I mostly spend walking or sitting on the beach, staring at the ocean. I meditate. I surf when I can. I take part-time work when its available; have had quite a variety of dead-end, no-brainer jobs, some of which I liked. I've got an MD degree from the University of Texas that I've chosen to ignore. You might also say that I have the equivalent of a PhD in "coping".
Looking at a work of art affects us in a positive, a negative, or (rarely) a neutral way. This is obvious: Look at the image, not just a glance, spend some time at it. Notice how you feel. My intention in making them was to create a meditative ambiance: a profound and lucid calm. Enter the illusion. You are the figure that inhabits this eternal place. Notice how you feel. Some viewers have found them evocative.
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artists' statement
I am not a realist. The Ocean Series is a Remodernist response to the color-field paintings of Mark Rothko.
These are not paintings of objects. They are not souvenirs of places, and they do not tell stories. They do present a recognisable image, and an illusion of depth. The image consists of the sea, the horizon, and the sky.
This is not the real, physical ocean, or atmosphere - it's a symbol. I propose that, as such,it can be universal.
The central theme in my painting is the search for stillness, the sort of profound and lucid calm that is the result of meditation or contemplation; another main theme is the relationship between humans, the ocean, and the atmosphere. The intent of my work is to create an ambiance where the spiritual dimension of this relationship can be experienced.
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artists' work
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media interviews
Interviewed by Brian Sherwin for My Art Space, June 2007
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white papers
An Evil, Useless Game (conversation with David Cohen, art critic for the New York Sun) from the September, 2003 issue of Art Critical
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exhibition reviews
The Littoralist Paintings of Carson Collins by Kevin Costello
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studio tours
coming soon
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audio interviews
coming soon
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