Nick Carter
My paintings explore ideas about color, value, and fabric. The perception of color is a personal, subjective experience, but our interpretation of it is influenced by societal codification and veiled in specious science. The idea of value — the spectrum of light to dark and trash to treasure — is similarly tangled in a network of optical, linguistic, symbolic, and political connotations. I use fabric because of its inherent, intuitive connection to our bodies and the built environment. Images of waves and barriers recur in my work because of their relationship to fabric, with its combination of structure and freedom, grid and flow.
My studio practice involves applying and discharging color from fibers — usually second-hand garments and factory defect yardage, as well as my own handmade weavings — to create objects that confuse support and surface, self-expression and domination, pigment and value. I often install my paintings off-the-wall, with a focus on how they will relate to the movements of air, light, and people around them. My work is not completed in the studio; it seeks context and human interaction.
(left) "méros." 2021, dyed polycotton, thread nails, 61” x 62” (middle) "garden 'snake”. 2021, dyed cotton napkin, thread, 21” x 18” (right) "tonight is not the beginning or the end of the world 'snake”. 2020, dyed cotton napkin, thread, 21” x 18”. Photo credit: Neighboring States
Installation view. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
(middle) "vertigo 'snake” 2021, dyed cotton napkin, thread, 21” x 18” (middle right) "single-stream 'snake” 2021, dyed cotton napkin, thread, 21” x 18” (right) "landline 'snake” 2021, dyed cotton napkin, thread, 20.5” x 19” Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Installation view. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Installation view. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
"HI gate" 2021, dyed cotton bedsheet, dyed cotton yard, thread bricks, dimensions variable. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
"cuckoo" 2021, dyed cotton bedsheet, thread, 108” x 82” x 10”. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
"big bang" 2021, dyed cotton bedsheet, thread 72” x 60”. Photo credit: Neighboring States.
Nick Carter
TYL Painting MFA, ‘21
IG: @nickcarter1000000
Website: www.nickcarter.us
Nick Carter (b. 1987) in an artist currently based in Philadelphia, PA. He has been the recipient of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts' Fellowship in Painting and the Harpo Foundation's Emerging Artist Fellowship. His work has been shown in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, New York, and Mexico City.