Carol Steinberg
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Artist Statement

My work walks the edge between traditional and modern, feminine and masculine, expressive and calculated, the light and the dark.
  
I have been oil painting since I was 8 years old.  My first paintings were of the Breck  Shampoo  Girl illustrations on the backs of magazines. I now believe I was engaged in an attempt to connect with the Feminine as a result of not living with my mother from the age of 3.  I felt  a deep need to express myself and my pain through painting and writing. 

Eventually I came to a place of just wanting to paint for its own sake and I chose flowers as a vehicle to allow me to explore  with

color, light, and composition, to play with paint, squeezing and mixing luscious colors onto my palette and canvas.  I'm not interested in the subject as I work, but  in an abstract game with rules that allow me to ultimately dance with energy--emotional and spiritual.
Again, I enjoy the paradoxical edge of the surface skin of paint that alludes to a deeper reality that unifies it all.  I want to express/allow freedom, joy, spirit.

Although I've thought of flowers as merely an excuse to paint, I've come to realize that they are simultaneously much more than that for me.  As a being who has always had a deep interest in the nature of the missing feminine (a la Da Vinci Code), they represent on some level the symbolic Feminine Face of God, the right side of the brain, the beautiful "silent" witness.  I have taught Beginning Drawing using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain  at Los Angeles City College for a dozen years and it has increased my awareness and passion for the revolutionary invitation for more of what our overly left brained, masculine valued, patriarchal culture and world in general lack.

These are not just pretty pictures of flowers, although they may appear that way.  They are informed by an extensive art historical training,  a passionate feminist perspective, and a lifelong search for my Mother.    My aim is to heal and bring joy to myself and others. 

—Carol Steinberg

 Bio

          Steinberg has exhibited nationally in numerous galleries and museums.  She has taught drawing, design, and painting at Los Angeles City College, Cal State U Northridge, and Otis Evening College.  She earned her MFA at CalArts and BFA and BA from Cornell University and has received scholarships from art programs around the country.

          Her work has been published, won prizes, been listed as an LA Times “Best Bet” and chosen for Eddie Murphy’s film Daddy Day Care, as well as other film and TV projects.

          Critics have said “Steinberg can really paint with confidence and swagger…She paints in volumes and in strong personal tonalities of mood and color.  Vibrant blues, greens and purple, raw, unpainted canvas, erotic or banal, the compositions express a balance of strenuous oppositions…Even a brilliant bathroom portrait takes on an atmosphere of carnival brightness.”

  Group Exhibitions
Museums
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art 
  • California Heritage Museum
  • Lancaster Museum
Galleries
  • Bella Arte, Shadyside, PA 
  • Copperwood, Orange, CA
  • Tre'sor, Shadyside, PA
  • Uffizi Design, LA Mart
  • Orlando, Tarzana, CA 
  • Trowbridge, Ojai, CA
  • Maestri, Bakersfield, CA
  • Arroyo Collection, Pasadena, CA
  • The Kitchen, New York City 
  • Studios Midwest, Illinois
  • Aubergine, La Canada, CA
  • William Daniell, Palms Springs, CA
Film Credits
  • Eddie Murphy's Daddy Day Care
Residencies
  • Artist in Residence, Studios Midwest, Galesburg, Illinois
Select Scholarships
  • California Institute of the Arts, Valencia,CA
  • Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
  • Anderson Ranch, Snowmass, Colorado
  • Academy of Realist Art, Seattle, Washington
  • Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
  • Scottsdale Artists' School, Arizona
 Education
  • Masters of Fine Arts: California Institute of the Arts,Valencia, CA
  • Bachelors of Fine Arts (Painting): Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
  • Bachelors of Art (English): Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Select Teaching Positions
  • Los Angeles City College
  • California State University at Northridge
  • Otis Evening College, Los Angeles
  • CalArts: Foundation Teaching Assistant
  • Associates in Art,  Sherman Oaks, CA
Publications
  • "Balance in Bloom,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1999.
  • “Best Bet,” Los Angeles Times, April 29--May 5, 1999.
  • “Capturing the Mystique of Lucky Baldwin's Lake,” Arcadia Weekly.Vol.2. No.41, October 9, 1997.
  • “Insights,” LA Weekly, October 28-November 3, 1988.
  • “Artist Looks Down On LA to Finish the Job,” LA News October 1986.
  • “Painting & Photography: Defining the Difference,” Women Artists News, Vol. 8 #5. 1982.
  • ”Women Artists Reforming Fabric,” Women Artists News. Vol.8. #2, 1982.
  • “The Quick Response,” Artspeak, April 9. 1981.
  • Spence, Carol, "Painter of Swagger and Spirit." Ithaca Times, July 24-30, 1980.
Corporate Commissions
  • California Credit Union Center Mural, Pomona, CA
  • 1st Prize Award for National Credit Union Association Public Relations Projects
  • Front cover of California Credit Union Center Annual Report
  • Crocker Tower View Mural, Downtown LA
California Credit Union Center Mural

California Credit Union Center Mural, 1993