Bio
Caroline Estelle is a painter based in Phoenix, Arizona. Her uncanny life-size figurative paintings explore the relationship between the body and the beach/pool environment. Estelle earned a BFA in Visual Art with a focus in Drawing & Painting from Penn State University in 2014. She earned her MFA in Studio Art from Arizona State University in 2020. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in places such as New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Quito, Ecuador. Estelle is the recipient of awards such as the Martin Wong Foundation Scholarship, the Gayle J. Novak & Cocke Scholarship, the School of Art Special Talent Scholarship from Arizona State, and the Creative Achievement Award from Penn State.
Statement
Unlike traditional portraiture, my figures reside in a context that allows for vulnerability. Often summer beach and pool scenes evoke feelings of happiness and escapism. However, my work addresses the implicit discomforting carnality found beach and poolside. Clothing items such as bathing suits, shorts, and sports bras, allow an opportunity for expression but also expose more of the body than typically seen by strangers.
Idealization and perfection are embraced in the saccharine colors to set the summery scene and the techniques used to render the composition, rather than explicitly in the figures. My paintings are created using either oils or gouache in many delicately blended layers of colorful glazing and scumbling, which results in a smooth, saturated, and sometimes splotchy surface.
Similarly to the Mannerists, the figures in my paintings are intentionally distorted as a reaction to the expected idealization of the body both within art history and the media. These figures still maintain aspects of the body that make it human—rolls, folds, orifices, and skin discoloration. Perspective, elongation, and exaggeration are utilized in the figure to the point of appearing uncanny. The ideas of contamination and the physical/metaphorical stain are further explored in works involving melting or dripping fluid such as ice cream.
www.carolineestelle.com
@carolineestelleart
