Carter (Artist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carter (b. 1970, USA) is an artist based in New York.
Carter studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art [1] (BFA, 1992), the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture [2] (ME, 1994), and the University of California [3] (MFA, 1997).
Carter’s work has been exhibited widely internationally, and has been featured in several important shows such as The Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art [4] in New York, and “USA Today” [5] at The Royal Academy [6] in London. He is represented by Jack Hanley Gallery [7] in San Francisco, Hotel Gallery [8] in London and Salon 94 [9] in New York.
Carter’s single-word nomenclature suggests a man of mystery: concise and generic, his name is a vacant brand for the projection of an identity. Through his drawings, photographs and videos Carter examines the recent phenomena of physical alteration and image manufacturing. Citing, for example, plastic surgery, biomechanics or medical experimentation, Carter addresses the human form as a source of social and sexual anxiety.
Often using a prosthetic limb in place of his own hand, Carter’s drawings are intentionally crude. Through his simple technique of pen on paper, Carter reinforces the aesthetic as a direct result of physical intervention. His varied mark-making transcends from the controlled to the degenerate, highlighting the limitations of body to encompass mind. Using his own abstracted form as a template, Carter’s drawings posit primitive shapes and patterns as muscle, sinew or fatty tissue - and more recognisable features of hair, noses, eyes, and ears - creating random assembly-line portraiture.
In his photographic work, Carter uses the Polaroid snap-shot for its believable realism as an instantaneous document. Shot in his studio, Carter’s ‘self-portraits’ substitute mannequins for himself. His convincing doppelgangers appear wax-like and stiff, further complicating the relationship between artist, artifice and artificial.
Recalling Picasso’s disassembled figures or Cindy Sherman’s chameleon role-play, Carter’s work mirrors the timeless fascination and revulsion with the human form, conceiving the body as the final frontier in artistic abstraction.
Charles_Saatchi Gallery, London:
"Carter’s idiosyncratic process extends from his material preparation to the act of drawing itself. Never working from imagination, all of Carter’s images are developed from what he describes as “life” study: careful anatomical examination of mannequins, sculptures and photographs. Modelling his images on figurative ‘stand ins’, Carter goes to great lengths to establish their veritas: often directly tracing a form, and always presenting the body in true scale. Through this element of reality, Carter’s work shuns the notion of painting as illusion or representation. Rather his abstractions embrace a concept of self-sustainable identity, giving validation to copy and placebo.
Developed from sketch of a life sized dummy merged with the outline of his own body, Carter’s "Untitled" personalises his intrigue with art history and sexual politics. Exploring the relationship between the legacy of artistic identity and the queer closeting predominant in the mid-20th century, Carter presents the masculine body as generic symbol and signifier. Drawing influence from artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol, Carter adapts various elements of their work, such as the relationship between drawing and sculpture, ironic reference to indexical painting, and identity as capitalist bi-product. In removing the idea of the individual, Carter conceives the human form as a universal prognostic of equality and choice.
Though Carter’s drawings are directed by an intuitive aesthetic, they evolve from an incredibly time consuming and considered process. Carter begins each work by making his own marbleised paper. Referencing the emotive brushwork of Abstract Expressionist painting, Carter’s swirling patters are created through a ‘hands off’ procedure of dipping individual sheets into a water and oil solution – a process similar to developing photographs. Using these designs as a template over which multiple drawings are arranged and pasted, Carter merges repetitive forms with his ‘instantaneous’ colour-fields, creating a conceptual symbiosis between the intimacy of abstraction and the mechanisation of pop".
