About the Artist:
Cynthia Carlson was born in Chicago and moved to NYC in 1965 for her graduate studies. In her sixty plus years as a professional artist she has had one-person shows in a number of galleries in the USA, such as, the Barbara Toll Gallery (NYC), the Pam Adler Gallery (NYC), the AIR Gallery (NYC), the Marian Locks Gallery (PHL), the Charles More Gallery (PHL), the Phyllis Kind Gallery (CHI) and the Marianne Deson Gallery (CHI), among others. Her work has been featured in numerous one-person museum exhibitions including, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia; the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, OH; the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY; the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC; the Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; the Lowe Art Museum in Miami, FL; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY; and the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, NY.
She is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award (2020); the City University of NY Research Awards (1996, 1990, 1988); the Rockefeller Foundation Residence Award in Bellagio, IT (1993); the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1987, 1980, 1978); the New York Foundation for the Arts Award (1978); the Natural Heritage Trust Artist in Residence Grant, Artpark, Lewiston, NY (1977); and others.
Her work is represented in museum collections across the USA, including, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC; the Museum of Modern Art in NYC; the Guggenheim Museum in NYC; the Brooklyn Museum in NYC; the Philadelphia Museum of Art in PHL; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art Museum in PHL; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Milwaukee Museum of Art, WI.
She is Professor Emerita at Queens College, CUNY, NY. She has traveled in the USA and Europe and she has lived in Italy for several years. She currently resides in New York City and Upstate New York with her husband and a cat.
A member of the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, at the time of the first exhibition, Cynthia Carlson was known for using a pastry tool to cover her paintings and installations in thick squiggles and swirls. Although her work has changed over time, she remains consistent in incorporating color, pattern, and her signature humor. Carlson cited the Chicago Imagism movement as an early influence, and her 1970 work ‘Untitled Inscape #1,’ included in the original show, was a response to the minimalism that was prevalent during the time through what Carlson refers to as an “interior landscape” that is “spatially unclear.”
Mainly a painter, her work has evolved within a number of different stylistic concerns including installation, sculpture, and public art commissions.
Learn more about Carlson at cynthiacarlsonartist.com.
