Featured Artist Winner at Bright Light Fine Art - Q4 2020
Carol D'Arcy: Biography
Born in UK in 1960, I first learned to paint under the guidance of my father, initially in water colour and then at 10 yrs old, I received my first oil-painting set, a moment which guided my life. At 11yrs old, (1971) I won a scholarship to Morpeth Grammar, where I became firmly ensconced in the art lessons. I felt totally at home there. I had a deep need to paint what I see, and they were very happy to teach that.
In 1974, my family emigrated to Australia. Here my life changed dramatically. The art lessons available to me offered only Contemporary abstraction as a valid expression. My artistic tendencies were deemed redundant. Having failed (contemporary) art at school, I privately returned to painting what I saw and felt, and the following year my painting of The Lithgow Colliery won The Regional Art Prize.
For the next 40 yrs, I have continued to paint. Exploring through landscape, portrait and figure; predominantly in oil paint. Over the last 30 yrs. I have exhibited, and hung in Galleries throughout Queensland and NSW, Including The Raglan Gallery, Manly Panorama, Henley Gallery, The Macleay Island Art Society and The Bruce Watling Gallery.
In 2006, I opened The Carol D’Arcy Private Gallery, where I hold One Night exhibitions, enriching the experience with musicians, poets, actors, and writers performing throughout the evening.
In 2015, my husband, Joe and I created a short film, Je Suis un Crayon (I am a Pencil), about the life of an Artist, (a pencil) and the innate drive that we all have to express. The film was a hand drawn animation comprising of approximately 5000 drawings. The film screened around the world, including the Tribeca Film festival and went on to be long listed for the 2017 Academy Awards.
Although I hang my work with Galleries, I have not pursued an art career through competitions. My day jobs have included Registered Nursing and Gestalt Psychotherapist, in private practice since 1995. My husband Joe D’Arcy and I have raised 2 beautiful children, Jazz and Byron D’Arcy, who are both now working in the film industry as a Screen Composer and Cinematographer/Director respectively. At 60years old, my primary focus is on my need to paint and my desire to learn.
Je Suis un Crayon (I am a Pencil)
David, Sherrie, and Jackie, do not teach dogma. Their compassion and humanity have encouraged me to not try to get it right. Rather the opposite. I am finally invited to learn with joy and be in beautiful contact with the experience of painting. Centrally they seek the gestalten, the whole, the expression, the relationship to subject and self through paint. They do teach technique, but with an emphasis on practise and movement. Now I can see beyond dogma! Nothing is “right” or “wrong”. There is just this, now; this concept, this paint, this brush stroke, this light, this edge, this exploration, this beautiful now, and they support the artist to reach to contact and express it.David, Sherrie and Jackie, all teach with integrity, intelligence, humility and passion. They show, personally, the process, which includes the struggle. To me this has also liberated me. Now, when I struggle, it is easier to get behind myself and keep going because I see the struggle as being part of it, rather than evidence against my ability. There is only the dialogue and where I am in it. David’s personal and vulnerable story of his realisation that he knew nothing (paradoxically his moment of potential) many years ago has supported me to include and allow ‘not knowing’ in my process.I’m so very grateful. Thank you.
Much Love. Carol D'ArcyMasters Member & Artist
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