Pamela Carter

www.pamelacarterstudio.com
pamelacarterstudio@gmail.com
613-849-9950

Growing up in a military family, Pamela was exposed early on to the great masters of painting in museums throughout Europe while they were stationed for three years in France. Then, choosing art throughout her high school and university years, she enjoyed a fulfilling career as a High School Art Specialist, finally retiring in Montreal to devote herself full time to painting.

At a time when the medium of dry pastel was enjoying a renaissance, this became her medium of choice for several years. She studied with many of the recognized best at the time, acquiring an expertise that led to numerous prizes and her own popular pastel workshops in Canada, the US, and in France. After several years, she switched to oils and began an exploration of the popular genres from still life, landscape, and figures to portraiture.

Eleven years ago, a fortuitous visit to Prince Edward County just east of Toronto, led to a life change as she relocated to the village of Wellington on the shores of Lake Ontario. She soon added a full studio Gallery to her renovated farmhouse, and, with light and space in abundance, she began to explore large scale abstracts. Eleven years on, as a now well-known member of the ever-growing County artist community, Pamela enjoys frequent sales from her gallery to returning collectors, has been a successful featured artist at the heavily attended Contemporary “Artist Project” in Toronto, and is now represented by Koyman Gallery in Ottawa.

“My years of painting traditional genres in oils has led to a fascination with the unique properties of the medium that I want to explore in line, colour, and texture without the confines of recognizable subject matter. With my abstract work, I have to let my intuition lead me, let myself get lost in the act of big brush painting in thick layers…. wet into wet, unsure of what will happen next. It’s an exhilarating, frustrating, and rewarding process, demanding that I relinquish comfortable notions of control, letting music and paint take me where it will. In the end, these abstract pieces bring me joy that I hope I can share with my viewers.”

Over her career, Pamela has explored a wide spectrum of painting genres, initially with soft pastels and now exclusively with oils. Her joyful abstract works reflect her deep understanding of the key elements found in all masterful painting; colour, composition, texture, visual poetry. The transformative beauty of light, music, and the serenity of her rural surroundings in Prince Edward County inspire her every day.