Congratulations to Carol Fabricatore for earning her place as a winner in the Boynes Monthly Art Award February 2023!

Who are you?

I am an artist living in the New York City area who is a great observer of all things and likes to approach creating narrative imagery beginning with an emotional connection to an idea. I have always drawn and painted from as far back as I can remember. I grew up riding and showing horses on eastern Long Island, NY and navigated my way to New York City for school. Drawing and painting has always been such a big part of me, understanding the world and how I can express my feelings about what I see and experience. I feel very fortunate to be able to do it for a career. I also love teaching. I always knew I would be drawing, painting, making imagery and telling stories as a visual artist. I have produced art for books, magazines, newspapers, and projects for design firms. My focus is now creating my own personal work and exhibiting in galleries.

I received my MFA from the School of Visual Arts and I have taught narrative drawing at SVA since 1994.

What inspired you to utilize painting as a medium?

I love the richness, fluid nature and texture of using paint and how it can be used in a very personal way. I love how you can play with layers, working with color to evoke emotions and the way paint can convey shape, form, volume­­ and contribute to the narrative.

How would you describe your work?

I work on narrative series of paintings and drawings. People, figures and portraits have always been of great interest to me. I like to begin to work directly from observation, drawing energetically in sketchbooks to communicate what is essential about the subject. Finding a narrative and working in a series allow me to capture and consider moments, to explore themes, and to bring out more intimate depictions of mood, passages of time, personal insights and complex thoughts. The process is a balance of intuitive response with creative risk-taking. I work from these drawings and color studies to work up larger paintings in my studio.

Can you discuss the inspiration and thought process behind your winning work?

The Coney Island portrait series was a personal story I wanted to tell because I love everything about Coney Island, especially the energy and raw environment. I decided to channel and interpret many of the large personalities, and intense bright colors and people of the New York Coney Island Mermaid Parade into a body of work. The parade’s dreamlike quality offers rich symbolic narratives about human strengths and weaknesses, ideally suited to my intentions for this series. This is a diverse series of portraits of women and female-presenting people who explore their divergent emotions projecting power, strength, vulnerability, joy, gay pride, and women's power in multiple ways. It’s important to me to evoke a strong sense of narrative within each portrait. The winning piece is one of the mermaids I found very fascinating. I love her directness in looking straight at the viewer with an air of strength, confidence and pride of knowing who she is.

Can you walk us through the technical steps of creating your winning work?

For this series I worked in gouache. It’s a water-based paint that has a consistency of heavy cream and dries very flat and quickly. I begin with loose pencil sketches getting a feel for the person. I find I have to mix a lot my colors ahead of time so I can paint relatively fast. I like working wet-on-wet and also layering. Since gouache reactivates if it gets wet again you have to be very careful not to overwork the layers. I find having a hierarchy of some sort ahead of time helps me think about color and what I want to say about the person. The painting process is very intuitive for me once I begin to paint.

What do you hope to communicate to an audience with your work?

I hope each piece projects a deeper, layered narrative and emotional quality of the people in the portraits. I wanted the portrait paintings to strike a balance between ambiguity and certainty, chaos and control, just like the parade itself. The emotional sense of the portrait should hit you when you first see it. Then you can explore the rest of the painting while stopping along the way to take in the rest of the story.

Can you talk about your biggest learning experience during the process of creating your work?

I started with a process of painting many experimental portraits before I felt like I figured out how it would all come together for me. There were several that didn’t work well at all but I was able to learn from them. This was the perfect subject matter for me to push the boundaries of playing with unusual color combinations, expressions, and personalities. When I was fearless in my approach, that’s when the portrait began to ‘sing’, and I was much happier with the outcome. Fearlessness and risk taking is always so important.

Have you experimented with other mediums?

Yes. I have worked in oils, acrylic, ink, acrylic gouache and many other drawing mediums. I’m pretty much an analog artist but have started to learn to draw on my iPad. I work with traditional mediums and supplies and it’s hard to say which are my favorites, it depends if I am in my studio or working from life on location. I love to use ink with dip pens and brushes. Sometimes I’ll add washes with watercolor over or under the drawing. I love to paint in gouache, watercolor, and acrylics. I experiment all the time to see where I can take something and learn from it. I was recently making monoprints, which was new to me, and had so much fun. I love to draw and paint on location from life, and will use pencils, charcoal pencils, brush pens, dip pens and washes, watercolor and gouache.

Can you discuss your biggest success since starting your artistic journey?

That’s a tough question to answer. It’s impossible to choose one. It’s like choosing your favorite color. They are all amazing for different reasons. I worked as a freelance illustrator for the New York Times right after I got out of school. It was an incredible learning experience. I did weekly drawings on location working with the top writers of the Times for about two years. That opened the door to many other artistic opportunities. I am working on a dream job right now, so it’s another big success for me already. I plan to have more amazing achievements to come.

Can you tell me something you wish you had known before or when you began your career that would have really helped?

I wish I had believed in myself and trusted my intuition more when I was younger. That’s a life journey.

What projects are you working on currently?

I’m working on a new series of paintings that will be larger than I have worked before and are figurative.

What is your dream project or piece you hope to accomplish?

I am working on a dream project right now that unfortunately I can’t discuss. I would also love to get more solo galleries exhibitions. I would like to inspire others starting out.

As a winner, do you have any advice for artists who want to submit to awards, competitions, residencies, etc.?

Perseverance is so important and never giving up is key. Everyone will get lots of rejections (including me) but you have to try not to take it personally and have it propel you to fight harder, keep working, and keep submitting to everything.

Lastly, I like to ask everyone what advice they would give to their fellow artists/photographers, what is your advice?

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be bold, fearless and keep learning from everything you do to build your visual vocabulary. Trust your inner voice, you know yourself best. Go after things that mean something to you. Finding your voice takes a while. It doesn’t happen right away, it’s a lifelong endeavor. If you have the openness to learn from your failures as well as your successes, with work hard and dedication, you can be successful.

Just make art you love and people will see it come through in your work. Keep your sense of humor front and center. Always keep a small sketchbook with you and draw everywhere. And have some animals in your life. My cats make me laugh all the time!

To view more of Carol Fabricatore’s work.

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