About

I’m an independent artist and graduate of UNC Asheville. My work posted here is a collection of pieces ranging from 2009-2023.

I create art work that freezes a moment of internal reflection on emotional and social issues. When pieces of a puzzle can be juxtaposed, their connections are easier to see. I examine how people and nature appear vs the internal story and systems they exist within through symbology and juxtaposition. I believe this approach is what human and nonhuman relationships should be founded upon: as unique autonomous entities with their own inner identity. When we discard an experience for its first impression, an opportunity is lost. Further inspection allows us see the complexities of others and our surroundings, and-turn, ourselves.

Within the scientific fields of Physics and practices of mystic Buddhism, there is an idea that all life is connected and made up of energy. I choose to embrace those truths as a foundation of my art within the puzzles I piece. I create scenes where the inanimate and animate receive similar treatment, detail, and characterization.

The living light energy of love is in all things: literal energy from the touch of existence at the beginning of time, the breath of life at birth, and the embrace of the spirit when we transition from the physical plane. The story of self-love within human history, and expressing that love with others, has been a constant theme through the life of every person who has ever lived. If we can learn to share that love with Nature, and include non-human dancers to this choreography of life, then we could literally transform the world.

Sentient life and nature intrigue me; these two references run throughout my work. They are intimately related. My mission in life is to reconnect people to the Earth through spiritual motifs, natural systems, and the human figure.

My method embraces this mission by utilizing the organic motion of water through watercolor and ink wash. My paintings begin with a feeling/idea that I’m struggling to articulate. I work on large canvas, paper, and board. I enjoy the flexibility that expanded surface areas provide. As the lines of the drawing are laid down, I weave a web of flowing dancing forms with and within organisms, both human and wild.

I’ll use a reference as a guide and then take over the composition to blend the pieces of the puzzle together. The colors that I choose inform the path that the painting will take, pulling cues from my focal points of symbolic and literal forms. They all weave together. It’s all intuitive. I know when the painting is finished when admiring it triggers the feelings that I’m struggling with. As if I’d finally scratching an itch.

-Facebook: Paige Lisa Carter

-Email: paigewhat3@gmail.com

You’re welcome to contact me for portraits, commissions, and other gift/art projects.