Description
‘Carmin’ by Caroline Gaudreault
Artist: Caroline Gaudreault
Title: ‘Carmin’
Medium: Acrylic on wood panel
Dimensions: 14″ x 11″
Framing: Framed (frame size: 21.5″ x 18.5″)
Year of Creation: 2024
Artwork Will Ship From: Canada
About the Artwork:
This work draws its inspiration from a quest for balance between the fragile and the intense, the wild and the refined. These bright red flowers, vibrant with life in the heart of emptiness, evoke the duality of the memento mori – an acknowledgement of the inevitability of death, but also a celebration of the present moment. – Caroline Gaudreault
About the Artist:
(Artist Bio)
Caroline Gaudreault is a magical realism Canadian painter born in Alma, Quebec. She was raised in a creative environment that became a way of life from an early age. She studied visual arts at Collège d’Alma and pursued university studies in literature, history, Spanish and programming. For several years, she held various jobs in these fields of study, while practicing art sporadically. But it was when she moved to Mexico to live for a few years that she discovered Mexican Day of the Dead imagery and began painting and drawing again. Fascinated by these skeletons with eyes festooned with flowers that are depicted in mundane everyday situations, she paints a few works that feature living half-skeletal, half-human or animal characters.
In 2018, she started focusing more seriously on art and refining her distinctive visual identity, drawing inspiration from both Mexican folklore and classical portraiture. She incorporates blooming empty eye sockets as a reminder of the ephemeral nature of life, such as the “memento mori”, (remember that you’re going to die). Her paintings represent a unique blend of whimsy and darkness, highlighting the beauty and fragility of life, as well as the extraordinary and banal aspects of everyday life.