It's been a while since our last INSPIRED post, so let me introduce you to Brighton based artist Carrie Stanley whose work I discovered a couple of years ago via her work on the Grief Project.
Carrie's openness about the loss of her husband and her own story with grief plays a huge role in the art she creates. Her story is an inspirational one of rebuilding a life after death and how art helped her find herself and happiness again.
Carrie's work started popping up on my instagram feed at a time when I was struggling with the sudden death of a friend and the honesty in her work and words were just what I needed to help me process some of my own grief.
Carrie's work seems to flow from a place within and fulfils a very real need to create, express and explore with total freedom. Her emphasis on the journey and the process outweighs the final work itself which is both refreshing and inspiring, not to mention she uses the most amazing shade of blue!
Join us at Carrie’s studio in Hove to discover her story and her signature blue artworks.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey as an artist…
I’ve always seen myself as an artist and used creativity as a retreat and to self soothe from being very young. I studied Art History at university though, as my parents didn’t support me becoming a fine artist as a career. As soon as I graduated I left the country to study painting in Florence, Italy away from family and for myself. It was a strong need and still is.
I met my husband in my early 20’s and kept a studio practise whilst working at some incredible places including Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Bluecoat Design Centre in Liverpool. We were surrounded by art and artists as he was a curator, then gallery director, ending up at Modern Art Oxford in 2009.
Our three children were born between 2000 and 2006 and my life as a Mum was very full with not much time for my own work which I really missed. When he died in 2012 I had to work out how to survive and be mum and dad to the kids at the same time. Those years were so tough but I started teaching art and slowly built up my own small art school in Oxford. I could work it around the children and it made me happy to be helping others.
My own painting practise slowly started to re emerge and, after a short while, gathered momentum and size and bravery. I found so much release in working to a large scale and with bright saturated oil paint. I started to find myself again through the canvas.
Covid 19 ended my teaching business as it was, but gave me the space and time to really engage in my painting. I attended an online art school, Turps Banana, and my network grew along with confidence.
In 2022 I relocated to Brighton, newly remarried and ready for life as a painter. I carried on teaching as a mentor which I absolutely love and now have a full and engaged art practise too. I felt a call to the coast and couldn’t have guessed what freedom it would bring. My work is now multi disciplinary including installation, performance and is immersed in my surroundings; the wide horizons and deep blues of sky and sea of Sussex.
I really admire the confidence and personal expression in your work, what inspires your art?
I’m inspired by bravery and generosity through many artists and art forms as well as nature and spiritual connection.
I won an Arts Council grant in 2022 to start to make autobiographical work about grief and loss. I couldn’t have conceived of this without knowing of the work of artists like Tracy Emin and Louise Borgeuois. To make this work I really focused on using all my senses both in perceptions of my environment and in relation to stored memory.
Truth telling and transparency through creativity became really important and I started to use colour and scale as a tool to help me. Working large scale on drawings and paintings is a somatic release, I’m never quite sure what will happen and really love the flow state. I look to the power of the sea, the cycles of nature and storytelling to help me find ways to make work which feels true to me but also gives back to the world though finding immersion in colour.
The very personal story underlying your art is one of trauma yet the works themselves often have a playful sense of fun and freedom. How has the loss of your husband changed or influenced your approach to the work you create?
My current work is very much about playfulness and freedom. It’s about being reborn into the world as a changed person and how to find identity again and happiness after traumatic loss. Art is incredible for its freedom to allow you to create your own world and live in it! I felt very trapped by stigma for a long time and this work is a resistance to that. I’ve heard others, who’ve had similar experiences, talk of finding the world more beautiful, more intense and expansive.
I feel lucky to be alive and am often full of wonder for nature. When M died I didn’t know how I would manage to survive. It helped having young children as I became determined to show them that we could be happy again and find purpose despite everything we had been through.
Grief and loss is such a hard subject for most people to talk about so it’s really inspiring to hear you openly share your story and to discover your work on the Grief Project. Tell us about the Grief Project and the mentorship role you play with others.
The umbrella title for my project is ‘Together in Electric Dreams’. It aims to explore loss through deep diving into the natural world and seeing ourselves as part of one living planet. Of life and death being part of a large revolving cycle. Of seeing us all connected beings through energy and spirit. It sounds grandiose but it’s really about opening up to many possibilities and existences, and my work plays with ideas of how this can be explored.
Paint is a vehicle for emotional journeys, thread is a language, colour is transportive. The aim of the project is to spark allowance in others to explore their own experiences though creativity. Often seeing someone else’s confidence and bravery is just what’s needed. I know that I sought this for myself in the early days post loss and there didn’t seem to be many artists making this kind of work. These days there are many more which is amazing.
I bring all my lived experience into my mentoring practise and many mentees do come to me as they find my approach both safe (a safe space for them) and freeing. I mentor artists all over the world who seek help with their identity and growth of their studio practise. I don’t really focus on the world beyond the studio, it’s really about helping banish old patterns of behaviours and limiting mind frames that can stop progress. I also love to inspire and share knowledge and links that will help others.
Let’s talk about the blue as it’s a real signature of yours and we love it! What inspired you to use that particular shade of ultramarine blue and what significance does it hold?
That’s a long story! But, in a nutshell, it came to me through dreams and experiences over the years and landed in the form of a bright ultramarine blue damselfly landing on my hand whilst I was bathing in a forest pool. Something inside me knew that this colour was connective and felt magical. I decided to focus on just using this colour to see where it led me.
I experience it synesthetically too; it smells sulphuric, sounds like rain on electric cables, tastes like aniseed and feels as soft as moss. It signifies expansiveness and infinity for me, the opposite of constraint which is something I felt for many years.
Do you think there will come a time when another colour may take its place?
Haha maybe …. I did use magenta for many years when my work was very body focused. It is changing slowly now in fact but I can’t say any more on that.
In creating your work how important is the creative process to you as opposed to the final piece of work?
Very. Process is everything! In essence it’s about being free and open to change. I don’t think of many of my works as finished, rather as evolving, as this allows them life.
You’re currently working on some hand embroidered textile art. What inspired you to start exploring a new medium for this series of works?
Stitch is part of my family history. I come from a textile background and there is something about a sewn line which feels very like drawing in fact. I think I draw with embroidery.
The wool and net pieces you are referring to felt like they needed a quieter approach. I sought the peace and meditative space of a slower and repetitive making. The materials and substrate often follow on from the concept, then we see what emerges...
Brighton has such a vibrant artistic community, how does the place and the community influence your work?
I feel myself here, like I can be whomever I want to be. There’s a huge swell of artists and I’ve recently joined a socially engaged art collective. This feels more me in the sense that the work has purpose, I’ve discovered this is something I really need.
And who are your favourite local artists?
Well that’s a tough one! I feel like I can’t start naming them as I have great connections with so many people. I’ll name the ones I’ve never met;
Aimee Parrott for her ethereal and dreamlike paintings, Luke Brooks and James Theseus Buck aka The Devonshire Collective for their off the wall and boundary pushing work, Rory McCormack for his ever evolving flint beach grotto.
Tell us a little about your fashion style…
I like to wear vintage and also support contemporary small design brands. I love colour and beautiful crafting although you’ll most often find me in painting overalls. When I do choose to dress up I wear Les Animeaux, Irregular Sleep Pattern and Reclaimed Roundabout.
What do you like most about your Chapter 2 boots?
They are so comfortable and were as soon as I put them on. They instantly reminded me of a pair of handmade boots I bought as a student in Italy. They look so beautiful and you can sense the love in their making.
I like to think that shoes carry you through the world and take you on adventures, where will your Wren Boots take you?
My Wren Boots will take me on the South Downs Way which I plan to explore lots of this year. I’m also planning to take them to Copenhagen with me soon, hoping they will be lucky boots for an important gallery visit … watch this space.
Carrie wears Wren Boots in black.
Follow: @carrie_stanley_artist
or visit Carrie's facebook page to view more of her artworks.
