paeony / traces II Drawing

Caryn Baumgartner is an artist living and working in southern California. Her work is primarily abstract figurative and concerned with exploring time and journey through line, form and narrative. Her subject matter draws upon imagination, dreams and the natural world. She employs a variety of mediums, including oil, wax and charcoal in her work. She is very interested in surface quality and frequently layers, scrapes, carves, draws, and wipes away until the piece resolves itself. Often times her pieces take on many forms through that process–both human and animal–before eventually resolving into their final state; a fallen bird becomes a boy, a child dissolves into a fawn, a bear makes way for a stag. a portrait turns in upon itself, or simply fades back into canvas. Ultimately, the abstracting of image and form over time reveal traces of these explorations woven throughout the final piece.