Carrie Kohles is a talented artist whose process reflects both her subjects and her art philosophy . Her favorite subjects to paint , by far , are horses . It ’ s common for artists to develop a fascination with a certain subject ; sometimes the fixation is aesthetic , but often it stems from a very personal connection . Carrie uses the expressiveness of the animal , as well as her respect for the power and freedom of the horse , to reflect human emotion and desires back to the reader . Her art mirrors things she or a viewer may project onto the subject — encouraging an empathetic relationship with animals and nature — thus perhaps allowing the viewer a shift in perspective on both themselves and the natural landscape around them .
“ At least my viewers are reminded of nature ’ s beauty and the power and poetry of the horse . I would like , if even for a moment , for the viewer to be taken away from the hustle of everyday life . I also like to represent emotion in most of my paintings . Horses are emotional and poetic creators that communicate with body language , so I find them to be the perfect subject to represent human as well . If someone can connect with that on a deep , emotional level , then I feel like I have done my job as an artist .”
The horse itself is art , the spirit of which Carrie does her best to capture on paper . While much Western art and media relies of the mythos of the Wild West and common iconography to invoke nostalgia for days long past , Carrie does no such thing . She does her best to make sure her work is fluid , wild , timeless , and lifelike all at once . She avoids including anything man-made in her works and breaks from the sometimes-rigid mold of Western art and Realism . Where we are used to seeing oil paintings of canyons and cowboys in the Western art world , Carrie brings us something different . “ I love and get a lot of
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