CAROLINE ABSHER
Name: Caroline Eleanor Absher
Age: 28
Birthplace: North Carolina, USA
Home: Brooklyn, USA
Discipline: Painting
Fire Girl, 2022
What’s usually the starting point of your practice?
The first layer is a big aimless abstraction using every color of the rainbow. Then I sit down and look for anything I may have unconsciously done. After staring for a while, the painting appears. Whenever you have an idea, your creative mind takes it and works on it behind the scenes for you. I imagine a mysterious old woman at a desk in a cluttered room, pressing buttons and doing equations while I am sleeping. So, I just think about new paintings all the time and let her guide me.
When does your work feel complete?
It’s the barely perceptible moment when nothing bugs me about it anymore. Of course, twenty minutes later something will come up, but I’m getting better at resisting those thoughts. I could keep going forever.
What are you obsessed with?
New York City, my cat, cave paintings, walking barefoot on river rocks.
What are the interactions that you seek between your work and the viewer?
With every passing day, the message gets simpler. I hope the figures in my paintings signal a sense of belonging to the universe as one of many. I hope they carry the feeling of sameness, like you already know them somehow, and are able to have a special exchange. Maybe some telepathy.
What is your commitment, both artistically and personally?
Help those in need within reach. Live in the moment. Trust my intuition. Be sincere.
Who are some of the artists that have been the biggest influence on you?
Leonora Carrington, Hilma af Klint, William Blake, Alice Neel, Helen Frankenthaler, Hokusai, Dana Schutz, Magritte, Chris Ofili, Wong Kar Wai, art of the occult, medieval illuminated manuscripts.
Where is the beauty for you today?
Riding around Brooklyn with my partner on our bikes, weaving through traffic in perfect sync, pointing every so often to make sure the other one avoids potholes. And we got a sun shower! There’s this TikTok trend to pair a nostalgic song with videos where your life ‘feels like a movie’. In the context of the cacophony that is social media, I think it’s really touching. It gives me hope that romance is a shapeshifter and will persist no matter what the future brings.
Sister apparition, 2022