Let me say this first: Susan Carr is peachy. She is the kind of person you want to embrace within moments of meeting her, which is exactly what I did when I landed in the loving arms of her exhibition “rituals” at LABspace in Hillsdale (her sixth solo show with the gallery). The show is up through November 24. Having just come off the aesthetic delights of several days in Paris—where the bulbous, joyous works of Niki de Saint Phalle rule the land—encountering Carr’s vibrant painterly vignettes and fun-loving ceramic figurines was as perfectly gleeful rendezvous.
We walked around the show together, spontaneously hugging as we swiftly covered a swath of personal ground, everything from the spiritual energies of Ram Dass, to her daily painting practice as it unfolds in her studio, to the death of her son Josh at 32 years of age (another immediate bear hug ensued after she dropped that devastating bomb). Carr’s warmth and joie de vivre infuses the core of her art, and even her creeping skeletons appear ecstatic as they defy their status as the ultimate momento mori, in fact they appear to sing the “remember you must die” tune with sheer giddiness.
Travelers, Susan Carr, oil on canvas, 2024
Carr’s show bursts forth with a circus-show excitement and ambience of raw color, yet there are distinct themes that play-out behind-the-scenes, among them an unsuspecting erotic sensuality. This is mostly observed in her paintings of the interior of seashells, including Grandmother (2024) and Self-Portrait as a Shell (2024), the former a slightly abstract expressionist vision of feminine lusciousness and the later an all-out celebration of female gonads confidently aflame. Her series of nostalgic-looking figurines also hint at frisky fun, and Feeling Cute (2024)—a tiny naked woman spread eagle and smiling unabashedly in a pair of red socks—perfectly captures Carr’s mature and playful mood.
Plaything, Susan Carr, oil on canvas, 2024
Her paintings are an enchanting combination of frolicsome and intellectual, and so heavily painted that they look like a band of bespoke birthday cakes covered in a sugary frosting that begs to be bitten. Fairy Queen Tatiana (2024) is a delicious example of this, where a girl’s face smeared with make-up and covered with wildflowers is downright yummy. Carr herself stated how her engagement with diverse creative mediums including photography (photos inform her work), painting, and ceramics pushes her to embrace it all with gusto: “I want to play all the instruments in the symphony [and feel as if] I have eaten the whole cake,” she states in a conversation with fellow artist Sarah Okamura during a talk in the LABspace courtyard last weekend. Citing various influences including the existential work of Edvard Munch, the comical cartoons of Robert Crumb, and aspects of Tarot and astrology, Carr emphasizes how personal narrative (and odyssey alike) are the base of her practice: “I think a lot about Alice Neel when I am doing my portraits,” she says.
I Want to Go to the Beach, Susan Carr, oil on canvas, 2024
During that conversation Carr also spoke bravely about different chapters of her life that inform the psychology behind her pieces, and Plaything (2024) is a masterful example of this, where a grinning skeleton riding a masked naked woman positioned as a hobbyhorse reflects a destructive relationship in her younger life. Other paintings such as Flowers (2023) and Garden (2024) also feature skeletons, skulls, and humans interacting in various supernatural configurations, yet never sinister or sinful. Despite the gravitas behind these scenes, Carr’s lively compositions naturally make one smile, a testament to her ability to transpose the depth of knotty emotions into heart-warming visions of artistic “outrageousness,” as she describes it. Carr’s world-building and world-bettering through art embodies loss and gratitude in the most meaningful ways, a reflection of her graceful attitude as she herself states so beautifully at the end of the artist dialogue: “I try to say thank you every morning, no matter what is going on.”
