Sarah Gayle Carter

I used to design things.

Custom rugs mostly. Also mirrors, lamps, plates, furniture, and even scarves. Those fifteen years spent in the high-end home furnishings market trained my "eye" and taught me much about the detail and discipline required to develop design strong enough to translate through the many phases of development from sketch to final manufactured product.

But now I paint.

After so many years of working in a medium that requires such controlled expression, I wanted to play with line, form and color. I wanted to feel paint move under my hand. To put pigment on a surface for the sheer joy and simple, direct pleasure of it. To kick back and roll with the looseness and freedom of this most traditional of all art forms.

 I’m having a blast.

Coming from a design background, I respond to line, form, and color wherever I find them. I'm something of a color freak and am drawn to clean compositions. I like to feel the texture of the paint and find the color hiding under the surface of forms. There's something inherently sensuous about the very process of painting. Whether land, sea, skin or fur, I can almost feel my brush stroking the subject's surface as I work.

It’s magic.

In addition to landscapes and other more traditional subject matter, I paint dogs. As a lark, I did a few high spirited, expressionistic dog portraits, dubbing them "Color Dogs” The results were an immediate hit with dog lovers and have taken on a life of their own. One reviewer wrote, "Carter's 'Color Dog' portraits have a funky, offbeat freshness that manage to convey not only the likeness, but also the personality of her animal subjects. With skillful brushwork and unerring eye, beloved pets come alive with an uncanny energy and presence, felt by owners and casual observers alike.”