ARTIST BIO AND STATEMENT
Born in England, Caroline Chilton has lived in Mesa, Arizona for the past forty years, after a short time in New York City and San Francisco. Caroline graduated from ASU with Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degrees, but since retiring as a school principal, she has followed her love of art and taken over thirty hours of art classes at the Mesa Community College, including classes in art history, drawing, painting, photography, color theory, and elements of design. Her paintings have twice placed in the MCC Art Gallery show, and she has previously exhibited with the Arizona Arts Guild and the Mesa Artists League.
I am inspired by the paintings of Kandinsky, who is quoted as saying, “The more frightening the world becomes … the more art becomes abstract.” During the Covid19 lockdown, each day I created a small pen and ink abstract design which I would later enlarge and paint using different color schemes, depending upon my mood and feelings. My focus on abstract painting had begun.
I work either in acrylics, oil, or water color, with pen and ink. My paintings consist of overlapping forms and lines, creating geometric, intersecting shapes, using a limited number of compatible or contrasting colors. I attempt to create a detailed, logical, but organic, flow in the structure of the design to provide a sense of rhythm, balance, harmony, and depth. The mood and emotion in the overall compositions evolve intuitively and reflect personal feelings, experiences and events prior to or at the time of the painting. My goal is to visually express these emotions in ways that will universally resonate and connect with the viewer.