The subject of his art is the four elements in their most majestic setting - the shoreline: earth, air, fire, and water. The artist has at one and the same time an ebullient nature and the 'gravitas' of original introspection. Tall and of
large trim frame, his bearing strikes one as being in stark contrast to the
fragile glazed surfaces and delicate analogous tonalities of color to be
seen in his seascape paintings.
Of his personal history he will tell you that he is of Irish and Cherokee
ancestry and that he was born on the 25th November 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the family relocating to Longboat Key Florida in 1958. With pride he will describe his mother who holds a Masters degree in art education and who home schooled her son in the techniques of painting in oil and water color before he was ten years old. A passionate traveller, he has since painted in Mauritius in view of the
Indian Ocean, the Stockholm Archipellago in the Baltic Sea, St. Barthelemy in the West Indes, Honolulu, Manhattan and most recently, Costa Rica, Central America. Throughout his travels the relationship of the sky to the sea in his "Ocean Series" has been the central motif of his painting. The first paintings of the series began on St. Barthelemy in 1978, the concept being a focused space into which his mythopoeic imagination has poured its colors. images ©copyright Carson Collins 2245
