Carolina Clay, Carolina Light

Kyle Highsmith

"Carolina Clay, Carolina Light"

Oil on Canvas 1996

A Greenville native with a degree in architecture from NC State University, Highsmith has been painting since age 6 or 7. About 17 years ago, he gave up architecture to pursue art full-time. “Life is not a dress rehearsal, so why not do what you what you want to do?” he says. “Job security is fine but when it is all over you may wonder why you did not do what you wanted to do.”

Highsmith is self-taught. “I learned by just painting a lot,” he says. “Art is mainly not what you know but what you feel. Thinking does not create art. It is the emotion, the exuberance of the experience, the process of painting I enjoy, whether it is abstract or realistic.

“Every painting I do is for myself and not to please anyone else. I do not paint for critics, for shows, or recognition, but for the joy of the process. When Van Gogh stood out in the field painting, he was only thinking of expressing what he saw, what he felt.”