Carol Jenkins
All my life I have loved the out of doors—especially wild places. There is something unpredictable about wild terrain, exciting, a little risky. It is also why I am drawn to abstract painting. It is the unexpected that delights: a wildflower pushing up through decaying leaves, an accidental smear on the canvas that leaves a beautiful mark I did not try to make. These are gifts that satisfy me.
Just like a forest, an abstract painting grows into itself and cannot be known ahead of time: it is a call and response, moment by moment, and can never be replicated. My painting process starts with spontaneous mark-making, then the laying on of bold shapes, followed by layers of acrylic or oil paint that I draw into and scrape away. Once an interesting line or color pulls the painting in a direction I want to follow, I build the layers of paint more deliberately into a composition that incorporates both the quiet expanse and bountiful energy of the wilderness I love.
The process of naming a painting is also important to me. I want the name to be a window into the painting that also allows the viewer to move anywhere else they want to go. I often spend a lot of time looking at a painting, engaging in an intuitive process of association until a word or idea pulls me toward a name that feels right. Playing with words is similar to exploring with paint: it is the unexpected that moves me.
My work has been shown in galleries across the West Coast and has been collected nationally.
Solo and Two-person Exhibitions
• 2024 Taylor Blue Interior Design, Berkeley, CA
• 2021 Gallery at Wilder, Orinda, CA
• 2018 Montclair Gallery, Oakland, CA
• 2017 Siskiyou Art Museum,
Dunsmuir, CA
• 2017 Liberty Arts Gallery, Yreka, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
• 2024 Marin Society of Artists, "Fresh Art," juror Donna Seager, the Seager/Grey Gallery
• 2023 Pence Gallery, "Twilight" Exhibition, Davis, CA
• 2023 O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, "Autumn's Palette," juror Catharine Clark, Catharine Clark Gallery in SF
• Art San Diego, Jen Tough Gallery
• 2023 Jen Tough Gallery, "The Bright Side,"
Santa Fe, NM
• 2023 Art Expo New York, Jen Tough
Gallery
• 2023 O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, "Women Making Their Mark," jurors Donna Seager & Suzanne Grey, Seager/Grey Gallery
• 2023 West Coast Biennial at Turtle
Bay, juror Shelly Willis
• 2022 Red Dot Miami, Jen Tough
Gallery
• 2022 Artist Alliance exhibition,
"Above & Below," juror Jennifer
Perlmutter, Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery
• 2022 Museum of Northern
California, "Celebrate
Red, Yellow, Blue," Chico, CA
• 2022 O'Hanlon Center for the Arts,
"Strictly Abstract," juror Emebet Korn, Desta Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
• 2022 Gallery Baume des Pelerins,
Sablet, France
• 2022 Hopkins Art Center, "And Then This"
Minneapolis, MN
• 2022 Jen Tough's Artist Alliance
juried exhibition, "Green"
• 2021 Hallie Brown Ford gallery,
Roseberg, OR
• 2021 Dab Art Gallery, Los Angeles
• 2021 Liberty Arts Gallery, Yreka, CA
• 2021 Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery,
Lafayette CA
• 2021 Turtle Bay West Coast
Biennial, Redding, CA, juried by
L.A. Times art critic David Pagel
• 2021 Maude Kerns Art Center,
Eugene, OR
• 2020 Marin Society of Artists, CA
• 2020 Danville Theatre Art Gallery,
CA
• 2020 Las Laguna Gallery, Laguna
Beach, CA
• 2020 Danville Theatre Art Gallery
• 2019 Art Works Downtown,
San Rafael, CA
• 2019 Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2019 Liberty Arts Gallery
• 2019 JenniferPerlmutter@theBank
pop-up exhibition, Lafayette CA
• 2018 Liberty Arts Gallery
• 2018 Jennifer Perlmutter’s Gallery
• 2018 Abrams Claghorn Gallery,
Albany, CA
Publications
• 2022 Art in the Time of the Corona
by Dab Art Co.
• 2022 Eye of Wonder, Gallery
Baume des Pelerins
• 2022 Contemporary Artist
Magazine by Jen Tough Gallery
• 2021 Artists of the Bay Area by
Jen Tough Gallery
• 2021 Wild Lands by Jen Tough
Gallery
• 2019 Sanctuary by Arc Gallery
• 2018 Have You Heard Us Yet?
Abrams Claghorn Gallery
Awards
• 2021 West Coast Biennial at Turtle
Bay, awarded second place by
David Pagel, Art Critic for the
L.A. Times and cash prize