"Illusions of Grandeur, a brief escape in magenta and green. 'Escapades Series'" Painting

'Generally, my work has always been investigative & meditative with social commentary thrown in.'

I am a multi-media artist and designer. As an Abstract painter, I immerse myself in the material and process; using found objects for ‘mark-making’, acrylics, oils and mixed media as well as collage, I employ colour theory and symbolism, with automatic writing and free drawing, exploring with the effects and tensions that reveal themselves. As an avid runner and Pilates & wellbeing coach I know inspiration also comes during my morning runs, the shapes of the moving body of my Pilates clients and of-course journal entries recording life’s interactions. Most significant, the practice of art is practice. Learning to lose the ego and watch as the message reveals itself.

When I am writing which is often the way I start my painting, I can spend hours manipulating the shapes, spaces, rhythms and textures of words, finding the imagery and tempting the senses to see, taste or feel the patterns. It is the exact same with my visual work actually; mostly layering and abstracting the human figure, grids, patterns, symbols and ‘environmentscapes’ to present a restorative space for the viewer. My work should have resonance as I want others experiencing it to feel intimate, liberated and reflective.

Of-course, I look at a lot of artists’ work from prehistoric paintings and Petroglyphs, the great masters to current movements but I have also been influenced by Georgia O’Keefe, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Rothko, Mondrian, Albers, many Caribbean artists and more recently to Carol Walker, Theaster Gates and Marina Abramovic. I am also drawn to the Theosophists and Supremacism’s Blavatsky, Malevich, Klee and Kandinsky.

BIO:
Carla Armour is a Dominican multi-media artist who lives and works in the British seaside city of Brighton & Hove. After graduating from Parsons School of Design (NYC) and the New York Restaurant School in 1987 she returned to her Caribbean Island, Dominica. One of her first ventures there was to curate an exhibition in 1988 of paintings and sculptures by Dominica’s leading artists.

Throughout the 1980’s to 2002 She split her time between her visual art which employed abstract symbolism in mixed media paintings, conceptual & installation pieces, costume, set, clothing design and production, poetry, spoken word, destination promotional writing and artists management at her Caribana’s Iris Dangleben Gallery & Studio.