Carolyn Brady (1937-2005) worked exclusively in watercolor, exploring three main themes in her painting: still lifes or tablescapes; flower-filled gardens; interior still lifes combined with vistas from nature and the out-of-doors. While these themes recur in the artist’s work, it is the subject of light and the architecture of creating a painting that provide a framework for each of the artist’s images.
Her tablescapes offered the artist’s personal view of the table set at lunch or dinner, with the meal half-eaten; the table filled with a pitcher of flowers, the daily mail, a tin of cookies — the stuff of life, all lit by sunshine that enters the window behind the table; the table as a stage for life’s rituals. In her later work she took color to a new level, pushing its intensity, pulling its contrasts, and enhancing our perception of reality by the heat of her palette.
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