ARTIST STATEMENT
The diversity discussion is often focused on outward differences. Racial minorities, less-abled people, those with fluid gender identities, older people. Mostly stuff we can see on the outside. What I think is often overlooked is how truly important differences may lie on the inside — our psychology — which is reflected in the way we were raised, our past experiences, in the beliefs we hold, in the values we express, in the traumas we’ve lived through, our victories, accomplishments and our losses. Most of my work is inspired by and filtered through my emotional reactions to the world around me; the physical, the philosophical and the political. These works were created after the Black Lives Matter riots in my city and my feelings of rage, grief and profound disappointment. I came to painting relatively late in my life. What I’ve discovered is that painting provides me both solace and platform as I recognize my own feelings of invisibility and the pressure to be grateful in the midst of dissatisfaction. A balancing act of desires, needs, and a lost sense of belonging.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Carol Bivins is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work can be found in private collections across the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. After spending many years living in NYC and Los Angeles and appearing in such films as Defending Your Life and Groundhog Day, and looking for new energy, adventure and inspiration, she relocated to Colorado in 2017. Since then, her work has been juried into exhibitions from coast to coast, appeared in Artsy Magazine as part of the Minimalism Exhibition at ShockBoxx Gallery in CA and was included in the Los Angeles exhibition “photoLA 2020,” a collection of portraits of LA Artists and Others by fine art photographer Jeffrey Sklan. For Carol, painting serves as a means of wrestling with and expressing her emotional responses to events occurring personally and in the world at large.
© Carol Bivins