In Todd Carpenter’s newest body of work, “Traces” the artist explores the light and shadows of real and imagined landscapes. With his monochromatic palette, Carpenter creates traces of thought and imprints of memory or experience by reducing scenes to their defining features. This emphasis on light imparts depth and atmosphere to places, or the particular patterns of repetition and symmetry that characterize the materialized world.

Whether through the twisting tree branches that writhe across the panel, or wind-swept clouds that push against buildings and jagged rock formations, Carpenter conveys an expansive sense of space and being. The universal nature of these paintings are open to personal connections filled in with marks, lines, and painterly gestures that evoke places that can be felt, but not entirely known.

The artist’s newest works embody mental impressions built from light chasing shadows through visual reflection. A testament to the expansiveness of our senses, Carpenter’s natural and urban environments are perception and celebration of the human experience.

“These paintings are traces of traces. They are traces of subjects, comprised of just enough information to suggest the landscapes they portray, and traces of what it might be like to experience a place without fully knowing what the place is. They are traces of memories nearly forgotten and of dreams not yet had, and are also even traces of that instant between memory and dream in which we never know what the world truly is. Ultimately they are just traces in paint, left by the movement of a hand, and - like these words – they are merely traces of an idea.” – Todd Carpenter

Todd Carpenter's career is as multifaceted as his work. He received a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from UC San Diego and taught photography at the San Diego New School of Architecture and Design, where he previously taught Neuroscience. He avidly pursues the field of Neurasthenics - how the human brain interacts with art and what elements it perceives as beauty. This understanding has led him to master the effects of light, depth and visual space as precision tools in the creation of art. His art has been exhibited frequently in California and across other venues in United States as well as in Hong Kong and Seoul.