Nanette Carter, Artist, Expressing the Complex Balancing Acts of Contemporary Life

 

Nanette Carter, Contemporary, "Cantilevered."

"Working with intangible ideas around contemporary issues has been my motivating force. Reading the news about different developments taking place around the world has turned me into a chronicler of our time. How to present these ideas in an abstract vocabulary of form, line, color and texture is the quest. These are the challenges and creative instinct that intrigue me most."

Nanette Carolyn Carter, born January 30, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, is an African-American artist and college educator living and working in New York City.  She is best known for her collages and assemblages with paper, canvas, and Mylar. 

The minute I saw the art, posted by my artist friend Peter Stebbins in Washington, DC and a friend of my late friend Lily Pilgrim, I was intrigued with the shapes, colors, composition. Some images looked like art teetering on the edge. I felt the relevance.

Al Loving, Abstract Expressionist, born
in Detroit, mentored Nanette Carver.

Carter's work embraces the brilliant African-American abstract art tradition created by the likes of Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, and Alvin Loving, Jr, her friend and mentor (note 4). These are some of my favorite artists of all time. The influence of Al Loving (1935-2005) is especially clear and direct, as seen in the Loving silkscreen to the right.  

Carter got her undergraduate degree at Oberlin, where she first began exhibiting in the mid-1970s, and art degrees at the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She spent time studying in Italy and won a Fulbright scholarship to Japan, where she studied under well-know Japanese woodcut printers. I can see that influence in her art. She taught at Pratt for 20 years, a popular and beloved teacher whose influence is far-reaching. She is now retired from teaching, devoted to her art full-time.

Her exhibition titled "Cantilevered" expresses her point of view and her perspective. It stems from the architectural term "Form Follows Function," which she translated into her own unique art forms. The shapes she uses inform the viewer of her intention and are choreographed in a way that tells her story, she says. "Since I have been working with conceptual abstractions for decades I have seen the correlation between this architectural idea and semiotics in the work. "Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols, shapes to communicate something. Once I've decided on a theme, I begin to think about how my shapes, colours, line and textures can best portray these concerns. How can I compose this imagery into a universal language." 

Carter uses the term cantilevered "as a metaphor for living in the 21st century."  I associate the term with Frank Lloyd Wright. A cantilever, Carter explains, "is when a strong horizontal structure is supported only at one end. It's a balancing feat." It's like life itself in this century of social media, divisive politics, senseless violence, a pandemic, climate change. "I feel we are all trying to maintain our balance and sanity."

So it appears in many of Carter's works that "the shapes are teetering, there's a sense of tension." In other works "it seems that somehow the structure is withstanding the weight." (Note 3)  I can see how the term "cantilever" fits the precarious political insanity of our time, the unnerving ebb and flows, the egregious injustice, the ever-changing realities of a democracy on the precipice, a world turned upside down.

Shifting Perspectives #1, 2022, recent works now at the Berry Campbell Gallery,
which is the exclusive representative of Nanette Carter's work..

A new exhibition of her recent work is now at the Berry Campbell Gallery in New York City, entitled "Shape Shifting."  It carries forward many of the same themes of "Cantilevered."  Life is a balancing act. It is signature Nanette Carter.

Can I get to New York to see it during this busy period in my life, selling my house, looking for another place to live? When I get back from Florida, I'm going to think about it. Nanette Carter's art is elegant, intellectual, profoundly creative in concept and execution. I can see how it enriches our mind and our senses at the same time.  I think we can all feel our own shifting shapes in her art. 

Sources 

1.  https://nanettecarter.com/

2.  https://www.theartblog.org/2022/04/nanette-carters-journey-as-artist-educator-and-anonymous-was-a-woman-award-winner/

3. https://www.hunterdonartmuseum.org/exhibitions/forms-follow-function-the-art-of-nanette-carter/ Current exhibit. Carter describes her work. 

4. https://www.berrycampbell.com/exhibition/143,  Nanette Carter's series, "Shape Shifting," on view  at Berry Campbell Gallery, NYC. My friend Peter Stebbins keeps me up-to-date.

5..https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/nanette-carter-shape-shifting/