Hello, I’m Carla Dawson. Thanks for visiting my site. I love color, line, nature, simplicity, travel, and humor. I hate rules. My goal is to take these emotions, use my imagination freely and create paintings that make me smile. Hopefully others will smile with me.

My work is based out of St. Louis, Missouri, and I’m a resident artist at The Foundry Art Centre. I have participated in numerous juried competitions and individual shows produced locally. My love of travel and nature has influenced my art and inspired the artwork contained in my Reflections Series and Seasons Series.

Since 1992 I have been studying and working at finding my niche. I have studied at Washington University; worked in a fine art glass gallery, taken a landscape workshop with Kim English in Aspen, CO; and studied privately with Robert Anthony Ketchens. (I hope to always be a student in some capacity.) I have also owned and operated a business designing and creating beaded/semi-precious stone jewelry which I exhibited both locally and nationally in juried shows. I now focus solely on oil painting (and my granddaughters) and am finding great satisfaction.

Please enjoy yourself while you browse my site, and contact me to purchase a painting or for more information.

Carla

Carla Dawson’s work is an evolution and development of traditional Impressionist ideas. The work takes on the challenge of the outdoors, the world of nature, and the life that comes through in the spirit of reflection. By intensifying the contrast among colors and laying heavy but carefully selected brushstrokes, she creates emotional works that are simple in concept but masterful in style. Her works emphasize what is basic and alive in nature. Her technique allows the vitality of her paints to be a force in bringing the work to life. The works are at once both a commentary on and a reflection of the miracles and simplicity of the natural world. Abandoning a career in banking to follow a calling in art long-postponed, she began workshopping her skills in landscape painting at Washington University and opened a business in designing her own jewelry. She now has dedicated herself to oil painting exclusively. Participation in recent exhibitions and juried competitions has brought Dawson a following that awaits the directions her talents will further take her.