What’s New
Review: Impeccable Craftsmanship on View
Carol’s latest show was favorably reviewed by Liz Trapp, an art historian, arts writer, and artist. The review, under the heading Discerning Patterns at Hammond Harkins Galleries Places Impeccable Craftsmanship on View
can be found in the Columbus Underground.
“An evocative show of over 30 works examines the relationship between craft and fine art.
Discerning Patterns, an exhibition of Carol Stewart’s paintings and Janice Lessman-Moss’s textile works at Hammond Harkins Galleries, is inspired by the interplay of color, pattern, and impeccable craftsmanship which is present in both artists’ works.
Stewart, a Columbus-based still-life painter, and Lessman-Moss, a professor of Textile Arts at Kent State University, are tethered together by references to domesticity, and yet Discerning Patterns is after something larger than that. This exhibition brings up complex and relevant issues of fine art, a context that Stewart’s paintings would traditionally belong to, versus craft, the context that Lessman-Moss’s textile works would belong to. In recent history, since the 1940s or so, craft has taken a backseat to fine art in the context of the gallery setting. Aside from that, craft is typically analyzed through a varied set of terms that center on functionality and use-value. What sets Discerning Patterns apart is the requirement that the viewer give equal space to each object, and therefore analyze the works through a fixed lens.
Stewart’s paintings, mostly still-life and interior scenes, are tied to representation. There are moments in Stewart’s paintings where her loose brushwork seems to define something else, elements of pattern which aren’t tied to objects at all. Studio Patterns is exemplary of Stewart’s aim. Using oil on paper, mounted on canvas, Stewart achieves a buttery smooth surface to her images. The absorption of the oil into the paper creates evident transparent layers of paint which are often hidden in the medium.
The painting is an interior scene of Stewart’s studio, packed with too many plants, tables with patterned cloths, a textile draped in the background – it’s so busy that your eye doesn’t have a place to rest. This is an important aspect of the work because it is the packed picture plane itself which seems to transform the canvas to an abstract pattern forcing it to depart from observational reality. This reminds me of the French painter, Henri Matisse’s lively interiors of the early 20th century where his very aim was not to let the eye rest.” More
Ohio Arts Council Individual Award of Excellence
On April 11, 2017, the Ohio Arts Council board announced its Individual Excellence Award recommendations for 2017. Carol was honored to receive an Individual Excellence Award.
Individual Excellence Awards are peer recognition of creative artists for the exceptional merit of a body of their work that advances or exemplifies the discipline and the larger artistic community. Learn more here.
Gallery Show Opening in April
Hammond Harkins Galleries is featuring Carol’s work in a new exhibition – “Discerning Patterns: New works by Carol Stewart and Janice Lessman-Moss.”
The show runs from April 21st until May 28th. The opening reception is scheduled for Friday, April 21st from 5 – 8 pm.
Drop by if you’re in the Columbus area.
641 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio.
Carol Stewart chosen for ArtPop Street Gallery
ArtPop is a non-profit organization that works with local arts councils and media companies to promote artists, give them a voice, create public street galleries and energize residents’ commutes. Currently, ArtPop is on the streets of 11 cities nationwide.
This year it is coming to Columbus, and Carol has been chosen as one of the five artists on display. Watch for her work on billboards throughout Franklin County.
More information here.
A Living Art
Carol Stewart’s still-life paintings offer a riot of colors and friendly objects including vases, glassware, fruits, flowers and textiles — all assembled as if on a theatrical stage. “Tablescapes,” echoing concepts found in landscape paintings, is the ideal title of her exhibit at the Ohio State University Faculty Club. Some 20 oil paintings are presented in the exhibit by the Bexley artist, who is represented by Hammond Harkins Galleries and maintains a studio at the Milo Arts center. “My studio has a southern exposure, so there’s lots of light,” Stewart said. “I’m interested in color and light and light falling on objects.”
Read A LIving Art by Colleen Leonardi published in Edible Columbus – Summer 2016
Still-life painter Carol Stewart makes ordinary items dramatic
Carol Stewart’s still-life paintings offer a riot of colors and friendly objects including vases, glassware, fruits, flowers and textiles – all assembled as if on a theatrical stage.
By Nancy Gilson, Columbus Dispatch
Carol Stewart’s still-life paintings offer a riot of colors and friendly objects including vases, glassware, fruits, flowers and textiles — all assembled as if on a theatrical stage.
“Tablescapes,” echoing concepts found in landscape paintings, is the ideal title of her exhibit at the Ohio State University Faculty Club.
Some 20 oil paintings are presented in the exhibit by the Bexley artist, who is represented by Hammond Harkins Galleries and maintains a studio at the Milo Arts center.
“My studio has a southern exposure, so there’s lots of light,” Stewart said. “I’m interested in color and light and light falling on objects.”
Stewart, a native of Ontario, Canada, moved several years ago from St. Louis to central Ohio with her husband, Paul Goodfellow, a researcher at OSU’s James Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their travels together provide fodder for some of Stewart’s paintings. Textiles from India, for example, are found along with clear glass vases in “Patterns from India,” and Chinese lanterns from San Francisco abound in “Paper Lanterns I.”
Stewart seems fascinated by common but lovely everyday items. She often paints flowers that she has grown outside her studio, as in “Hellebores.”
“Late Afternoon February,” one of her most recent works, focuses on items she unpacked from boxes: pitchers, vases, a salt shaker, dolls, toys and more which, together, acquire a feeling of abstraction because of their dense concentration.
Two works pay tribute to one of her own favorite painters, the deceased Richard Diebenkorn, an abstract expressionist and member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Stewart includes references to his paintings in “Still Life with Diebenkorn” and “Still Life with Diebenkorn and Clementine.”
One of the most beautiful works is “Three Green Pitchers,” a study of pitchers, cups, bowls, lemons and boxes artfully assembled on a table and painted in vivid shades of green, rose and blue.
Stewart’s paintings are exceptionally pleasant to look at, but they are more than pretty. Her composition is careful and imaginative. And her sophistication with color and light might look effortless but is deceptively skillful.