Cathy Carey
Cathy Carey’s paintings express an essential connection of all things through a joyous spirit. As an accomplished oil painter, Carey works in a unique version of a contemporary color expressionist style. She tells her stories of exhilarating joy using gestural brush strokes, vivid color and rhythmic compositions.
Originally from Virginia, Carey spent most of her childhood outdoors. From a young age Carey painted and drew images from her imagination and illustrated stories that she wrote. In pursuit of formal training, Carey attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC and then received a BFA in Painting and Print Making from Virginia Commonwealth University. After graduating from VCU, Carey realized she would need to do something to make a living, so she began a complementary artistic career in the design and printing industries. After working at a silk screen factory, a printing company, a large advertising agency and Circuit City as a graphic designer and illustrator, she moved to California to work as an Art Director for a newspaper group. At the printing company she honed her skills with a large format camera and became expert at unusual croppings and composition. While at the advertising agency and Circuit City she came up with ways to generate ideas quickly and developed a great skill at pen and ink illustrations. All her lessons and skills came to fruition at the newspaper where she learned to deliver a creative idea on a deadline and hold a fast paced work ethic.
When she was ten years old she was badly injured in a car accident and has total amnesia about the event. The right side of her face was crushed and had to be repaired through many years of reconstructive surgeries. To say this affected her childhood is obvious, but the direction in which it took her life is quite amazing. From that experience, Cathy learned many years later, she suffered recurring post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the severe brain trauma. This contributed to an autoimmune condition that eventually kept Carey from working outside the home. This would stop a lot of people in their tracks, but Carey immediately went out and purchased a computer on her credit card and became self employed, starting Elements Graphic Design.
Always working in the art world, today Carey devotes all her time to being a professional fine artist. While busy, the life she has created is enviable. She loves to travel to places she wants to paint, and she takes photos, does sketches and maintains journals of her experiences and impressions, which she turns into new series of paintings back home in her studio. One of her journeys was to Monet’s garden in Giverny. When Carey returned from Giverny, she decided to recreate an artists’ garden like Monet had done, a place where she could design gardens to paint and share the environment with other artists. Cathy lives on a canyon that is a nature preserve. Many of Carey’s paintings draw inspiration from the canyon, where bobcats, and a family of coyotes roam, and quail, owls and all sorts of fascinating creatures live.
