142 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE
| JULY/AUGUST 2016
Since returning to Clearwater, where she
was born, Carrie has been pursuing her
passion for art in her studio on South Fort
Harrison. She often works on commission
and is currently painting sixteen portraits
of individuals for the City of Pembroke
Pines, Florida to be displayed at the grand
opening of their new Civic and Cultural
Center in 2017. Carrie captures her subjects’
individuality by employing unique and
unusual flesh tones in her larger-than-life
paintings. She searches for their statesof
mind, which she reveals through their
expressions and attitudes. Much like a
psychologist, she studies the sitters and
transfers what she sees to the canvases to
bring her subjects to life.
While expressing herself, Carrie
connects with others, just like she has
done since elementary school. She
communicates what she sees in them by
painting portraits that have the ability to go
beyond reproductions of their features. For
her, the images she constructs must also be
able to convey stories about her individual
subjects to the viewers. To accomplish
this, she uses dramatic lighting that often
creates somewhat haunted appearances in
her subjects. Her work is bold, powerful
and expressive, revealing her interest in
Freudian theories on the unconscious mind
and repression. It is as much about her
subjects’ psyche as their actual features. A
fan of artist Chuck Close, she found that the
giant portraits she creates leave an impact
on her audiences, as they provoke feelings
of intimacy and perception.
Carrie achieved a dramatic and intriguing effect by cropping this face.
Smith paints at her studio in Clearwater.