Carolyn Berry
I was born and raised in Kansas but I have lived in many different places during my adult life. My job experience includes teaching art, college admissions work, corporate telecommunications and floral designing.
I have always been a collector of objects, artifacts, and remnants of materials. These things might stay in my studio for years before I find a "new life" for them.
The beauty and treachery of nature has become increasingly prominent in my work. Fragile flowers, thorns, pods, bones and even dead creatures are preserved so that I can give them more time in my art universe.
As I walk around the world, I am compelled to pick objects or photograph subjects that catch my attention. I am drawn to eroded or decaying surfaces, abandoned spaces and natural forms. Even as a child, I loved going into old buildings and looking at antiques imagining how many other lives lived in that place or touched the objects left behind. This interest has increased as I study my family genealogy.
No matter what medium I am working in most of my imagery involves layering. I photograph, paint, or collage pieces of imagery that evoke fragments of imagined dreams that trigger a sense of time and place. By embedding these images in encaustic wax or acrylic depending on the amount of layering, transparency or surface texture needed to achieve an emotional impact, I hope to enhance the dreamlike quality of these moments of memory.