We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul Caranicas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
i knew from a very early age – around 10 years old – that i was an artist.
As far as pursuing this path professionally, i never really knew until i moved to Paris in 1970, went to the Beaux Arts, and was offered an exhibition.
Paul, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I had attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC after graduating from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service with a BA in International Affairs.
When i moved to Paris and had compiled a significant body of work – both paintings and drawings – i was offered a solo show in Barcelona, Spain. This work was architecturally based. It was influenced by both Italian Futurism and French and Russian Art Deco architecture.
This exhibition was reviewed in The New York International Herald Tribune, and sold well. After that i continued showing in Paris and in other galleries in Europe.
I moved to NYC in 1975.
Switching gears for a new body of work that represents the next fifteen years, I dove into the exploration of military architecture embodied by the World War 2 concrete bunker, both in Europe and America. and began showing with a prestigious 57th St gallery
Art had become my way of life.
One of my drawings from this series was acquired and exhibited by the Smithsonian National American Art Museum.
Subsequently i had over twelve solo exhibits throughout the 80s and 90s in my NYC gallery and other shows across America.
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In 2000 i found myself without representation and had to start over.
Within five years i had changed direction, focusing more on landscape and the sky. These new works – The Ozone Series _ became an ongoing preoccupation for the next ten years and were shown in another 57th St gallery in five consecutive shows.
By 2016 the bunker cycle had completed itself. I began once again to explore another facet of world war architecture; this one was earlier that the WW2 bunkers; known as “Sound Mirrors”, these WW1 concrete structures resemble huge dishes, some as high as 30 feet, implanted along the cliffs of the UK facing Germany over the English Channel. I now have over twenty sound mirror paintings, and am looking forward to showing them in the future.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
in a word, freedom.
Freedom to explore your interests and to express them in the myriad ways offered to us today by the art world.
NFT’s and IT are now at the frontier of this exploration, but every decade has brought new ways of revisiting the past and inventing ways of expressing what you are feeling.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Since the turn of the millennium social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, have been viable ways of getting my work out there.
i began to draw the figure around 2000 and have built up a body of work that I post daily.
Drawing in pencil and watercolor from a live model gives me instant gratification, and i like to share the result.
i have definitely built a new audience by doing this.
It’s just one more way of furthering the exploration mentioned above.
Contact Info:
- Website: google: paul caranicas artist
- Instagram: paulcaranicas
- Facebook: paulcaranicas
- Twitter: paulcaranicas
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=681vAHg9DQs
- Other: https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/89086 https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155905/cape-may-light http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/paul-caranicas-bernarducci-meisel-4-28-11.asp https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs_anztLenR/?hl=en&img_index=1
Image Credits
1.. 12_2023 2. Untitled 11, 1972, acrylic on linen, 24 x 24 in. Galerie du Luxembourg Poster, 1975 3. SENTINEL 2 (STATEN ISLAND), 1983, oil on linen, 40X40 in 4. FORT TILDEN, BROOKLYN 1984, oil on linen, 40 X 80 5. Sources of Energy #1 (1925), The Building of Hoover Dam, 1995, oil on linen, 60 x 66 in 6. O-ZONE 7 (CAPE MAY) 2008, oil on linen, 50×70 in 7. O-ZONE 14, 2009, oil on linen, 50 x 54 in. Bernarducci.Meisel Gallery Poster 8. O-ZONE 34, 2013, oil on linen, 64×86 9. David, 2020, pencil and watercolor on paper, 11 x 14 in.