Carolyn Carr is a multimedia artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work addresses the struggle to establish personal identity and a coming to terms with southern heritage. Through a slow making process, Carr deliberately creates objects - paintings, artist books, pinhole cameras, short films, or clay sculptures, hand built or on the wheel - by reenacting cultural traditions common to domestic life. Through these meditations, Carr aptly reconsiders the responsibility of her rich history and legacy. These issues are not exclusive to the South, many grapple with them, but the Southern States have been the battleground. Through her work Carr hopes to articulate these histories and relationships in an effort to initiate reconciliation.
The current exhibition was completed during an artist residency at Andalusia, the family homestead of author Flannery O'Connor, in Baldwin County, Georgia. While in residence Carr constructed a series of abstract narratives to illustrate the conflicts she sees as inherent to southern life. Carr deliberately references the rich literature, O'Connor, William Faulkner, or Carson McCullers, of her native south in her conflicting themes of love versus hate, freedom versus enslavement, good versus evil, or life versus death.
Carr (b. 1966) received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. Carr's work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Asia and Europe including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Big Pond Artworks, Munich, Germany; Artists Space, New York, NY; 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA. Carr's work has been critically received and reviewed in numerous publications. In addition to her studio practice, Carr sits on the boards of the Forward Arts Foundation, the Fulton County Arts Council, and the Cherokee Garden Library, advocating for fellow artists. Carr lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia, and Western North Carolina.