Honourable Mention

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2024

Awarded by RAYMAR

Caroline Nelson

Title:

“Hope”

Medium & Dimensions:

Oil on panel, 20 x 16 in

About the Artist

Caroline Nelson (born 1998) grew up in Arlington, Virginia. She attended VCUarts in Richmond, Virginia for two years before leaving to pursue a traditional, classical education in realism. Caroline trained privately with artist Henry Wingate in his Madison, Virginia studio full time for a year and a half learning the “Boston School Tradition” of impressionist realism. After spending the summer of 2020 working with artist Joshua LaRock, she continued her education for a year and a half at East Oaks Studio in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a resident intern artist. She now works and maintains her own studio in North Carolina.

Caroline feels that her calling as an artist is to be a light that shines in the darkness, and through that, honor the harmony of the natural world. Her first teacher in impressionistic realism, Henry Wingate, passed down to her a philosophy of artmaking that he received from his teacher – to pursue and represent “the Good, the True, and the Beautiful”. That doctrine has been a foundational cornerstone to Caroline’s artistic path. She aspires to create timeless paintings, not necessarily seeking to relive the past, but build upon the hundreds of years of realistic tradition of celebrating greater themes of humanity, both poetically and beautifully.

“Hope”: is the personification of the aforementioned virtue and reflects on the importance of a victorious faith in good triumphing over evil. This work is an exploration of themes of truth, harmony, femininity, passage of time from girlhood to womanhood, and timeless beauty. “Hope” sits perched at her seat, crowned with glowing light, eager and unfailingly anticipating the actualization of her dreams.