Caroline Sharpless

Region: West

Website: http://www.csharpless.weebly.com

City / State: Houston, TX

I have always been interested in the built environment and its psychological implications. Color dictates the space, and space becomes an ambiguous abstraction. The scenes are marked by emptiness. Leaving empty deserted stages without much narrative or other apparent meaning, the areas of color play with and off the tension that an empty, depersonalized interior has—part sterile environment, part utopian dream.

My recent work is based on installation images from gallery websites. I recreate the settings that present paintings in their most enticing framework. The lighting, shiny floors, and architectural features all become subject matter. The idea behind works of art as exhibited commodity led me to wonder how many other paintings have been reflected in those floorboards. What memories did these walls hold?

Unexpectedly, what began as a meditation on the strategies of display became a narrative that considered the life of an artwork not just the result of an unencumbered creative act, but a collaboration between what comes before you and what comes next.