Carol Updegrave
Lima
Exploring place and process with materials, building cultural bridges with art and cultural exchanges. Peru intrigues, join the journey for special insights.
Message
Carol Updegrave is a observation-based, research enriched and action motivated mixed media artist. Process, emotions, and materials inform her work about place, time, memories and movement. She peels away the layers of history and infuses her discoveries in multiple nuances, raising questions and thoughts about our roles on our journeys. She holds a BA in Architecture from Lehigh University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, School of Visual Arts The Artist Residency Project, 2024 and 2021. She participated in an artist residency in Sachaqua, San Roque de Cumbaza, Peru, and in a six-week studio-critique program at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 2023. She was a member of UNCOOL Artist. She has participated in several master classes and workshops on-line and at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), SVA (School of Visual Arts) NYC., NY, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY., Corriente Alterna, and The Image Center, Lima, Peru She has exhibited at several venues globally, namely: “All that Was Left is Art”, SVA, NYC, NY.; “Encuentros”, San Roque de Cumbaza, Peru;f 9-D Gallery, “SLOOM”, NYC, NY; “Yonder Crush”, Satchel Projects, NYC, NY; “BLINK” and “BLINK II”, Chicago, IL; Teleportal Gallery: Ephemeral Existence, NYC, NY; “Movement”, Milwaukee, WI; “Munich Calls”, Munich Germany, “Homeward”, Tulsa, Ok.; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, on-line, and in various venues in Lima, Peru during the past 25 years. Her work is in private collections in Miami, Dallas, Houston, New York, Paolo Alto, Sarasota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Lima, Peru.
Statement
I am an observation-inspired, research-enriched, and action-motivated mixed-media artist. On daily walks, I scour sidewalks looking for objects, watching skies, textures, buildings, trees, and windows, allowing my memory and senses to inform my work. While traveling in vehicles or planes and sitting in buildings, I view the world and observe and absorb place. Mesmerized by the clouds, rolling fields, mountains near and far, old, crumbling buildings, looming trees, twisted and gnarled roots, rocks, flowers, and bark, I draw and sketch in place or take my images engraved in my mind or my camera to my studio and paint, draw or move ink on the page.
Infused with the ecology of my Pennsylvania childhood forest and interlaced with architecture as my formal training, my work is at the intersection of nature and our built world telling stories about place. With spontaneous, energetic mark-making, incorporating details of geological formations, trees, constructions, flora, and fauna, I create images, infused with personal perspectives.
Moving from large-scale landscapes that invite the viewer to enter, to postcard-sized images of buildings and foliage, I invite viewers to join me on my journey. Blended with my viewpoints from cars on highways and gliding feet over land, from Peru to the US and Europe, I create images of mundane places that evoke memories and emotions, cross borders, and generate discussions of how we live in this world.