Adonia Prada | The Skinny: The Fashionable Art of Caroline Becker

Wearing a Beautiful Ware

By Raquel Lynne of Adonia Prada | The Skinny
QuailBellMagazine.com

Raquel Lynne: Hello Carolyn!  I am very excited about catching up with you; your art work has captured something quite unique. So tell me a bit about your work.

Carolyn Becker: Raquel, I am so happy that you are interested in my work! My current body of work contends with ideas of self-portraiture, as it relates to fashion, and the body. I have always been in love with designer and vintage fashion, but I have also had a weird relationship with it. Because I am so petite, (4’9") I never have been able to wear the clothing that I really want to wear. This has always frustrated me. Despite my challenges, I have been able to make do. Somehow I have been able to find and alter clothing to fit my body type.

Through my work, I tackle my interests and struggles with fashion in a new way. My current extra-small collages and extra-large oil paintings are essentially fragmented “self-portraits” that are composed of images I find attractive from magazines, fabric scraps from my closet, broken jewelry, glitter, and pictures of clothing from my closet. Although my face is not literally depicted in my works, the works still function as portraits because everything in my collages, and collaged painting represent me. I work with extreme sizes of my work, to further contend with the idea of my height and my physical capabilities.

In all my work, I use as much bright color as I can. Since I was young, I rarely used the color black in my work; I want to make my paintings as bright and saturated as possible.

Raquel Lynne: That is really quite exciting. Your art is amazing.  Tell me how it is you use fashion in your art work? Why fashion?

Fashion has always been a part of me, and who I am, partly because of my struggle with it. Because I have this struggle to find clothing that fits, I am even more motivated to conquer my issues, critique, and celebrate the subject.

Raquel Lynne: Oh, lovely! So, tell me. I noticed a pair of jeans you designed, it is captured on the Urban Art Syndicate website—on each pant leg you had painted a leg.  I want them!! Tell me more about this piece.

Oh, yes! I made this piece ages ago! I can’t believe you found it! Even so, this piece still relates to my interest in clothing, and my body type. I have always felt uncomfortable with my legs, and pants never fit me. In this piece, I painted my legs, as they would normally fit into a pair of pants. The painted legs are shorter than the lengths of the legs of the pants. I did a series of three of this work, to play with different sizes of pants and see how my legs fit in each pair.

Raquel Lynne: Oh my, tell me more…

Yes! I haven’t thought about this piece in a while actually, so I am glad you brought it up. I might play with this idea in the future, but only until my interest is collage and painting the collage is exhausted!

Raquel Lynne: Who would you say has influenced you the most, and where could we see that influence?

My interests include vintage and designer fashion designers such as Pucci, Marc Jacobs, Etro, Marni, Miu Miu, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Alexander McQueen, Helmut Lang, and countless others. I love the colors and patterns that you can see in these designers' collections. You can see this appreciation in the large-scale collage-based paintings that is my current body of work. My paintings have tons of color, shape, and pattern.

In terms of artists and their works, I love Matisse’s cut-outs, Rosenquist’s paintings, and Mickalene Thomas’s rhinestone-embellished paintings.

Raquel Lynne:  Is there anything else you want the reader to know that we haven’t touched on?

The reader should know that I have a show up at Tabula Rasa called “Petite Chic,” on Capitol Hill! It is open through the month of November on Tuesdays and by private appointment. I can give personal tours.

Also, don’t let size dictate what you wear. Wear whatever you want. There’s a way to make it fit.

And for aspiring artists, make what you want and who cares what other people think? You got to have passion.

Raquel Lynne: Well, thank you Carolyn, it has been lovely to hear a bit about your journey and have some of your insights. 


If you have been inspired by Carolyn Becker’s work, please find her online at CarolynBeckerArt.com.


***This post was originally published on Adonia Prada | The Skinny and was re-posted with permission.***