Carol Gove

I enjoy giving new life to older materials, leaving only a fragment of their original state. When you see my paintings, they feel almost built, with lots of layering and ripping away.

I draw from nature, landscape, and abstract expressionism, attempting to strike a balance between painterly gesture and the physicality of a pasted collage fragment. I mine a personal and aesthetic history for source material, reusing scraps of old handwritten letters, worn labels, sheet music, sewing patterns, and other memorabilia from my childhood and the lives of family members, creating something new from something old.

I create dialogue and play between the graphical history and textures of the found materials and the fluidity and opacity of paint. Remnants of imagery appear and disappear in my work as the materials are washed and worn by layers of paint. It is my intent to give viewers a glimpse at a recognizable fragment or common history so that they may be reminded of their own memories and lives.
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Carol Gove works out of her Santa Fe studio as an abstract mixed media collage artist. She has a BS from the University of New Hampshire and studied at DeCordova Museum School in Boston. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibits over the last 20 years.

She is a member of the DeCordova Museum corporate art program and the National Association of Women Artists in New York. Her work can be found in such public collections as the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

She has been accepted into such nationally juried shows as the 100-year retrospective "In Context: Collage & Abstraction" at Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York. This exhibit included contemporary artists as well as masterwork by Kurt Schwitters, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner and others. She has also exhibited in museum group shows in the Boston area at DeCordova Museum, Danforth Museum of Art, and Whistler House Museum of Art.

In addition to working in her studio, Carol is a dedicated volunteer and has given much of her time in the last 20 years to animal rescue. She is currently the board vice president at Felines & Friends New Mexico in Santa Fe. She also has donated her artwork to many non-profit causes including Human Rights Campaign, Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in New Hampshire, Citizens for Affordable Housing in Boston, New Hampshire Institute of Art, and Contemporary Forum in Phoenix.

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