Beaulieu: Visit at the Studio of artist Carol Bruton

The pretty town of Beaulieu is only 10min car drive away from Monaco and apart from excellent restaurants, there are plenty other attractions to add to your agenda, that will spice up any weekend and get you out of Monaco without too much driving or planning.
One of the Beaulieu highlights is a visit to Carol Bruton's studio and get to know her art. Carol is a wonderful woman and her art is as exciting and interesting as it is aesthetically beautiful. I am the proud owner of one of her works as well, and I encourage you to see her works in person.
You can find Carol's contact details on her website:
www.carolbruton.com

Here is a little sneak peak and some more on Carol herself:

Carol Bruton was born in Toronto, Canada and studied art at the Bellas Artes de Madrid, the Camden Arts Centre, London and the Edinburgh College of Art. Carol's childhood was spent in Spain, a country she still visits regularly. The strong influence of the starkness of the landscape of Southern Spain with its predominant colours of blue and ochre, is evident in her paintings. She has used the burnt earth colours to mould her work. The stucco-quality of the canvasses is the discovery of the artist herself. She found that by using a palette knife to mix limestone/sand with the oil medium, she was able to produce in texture the sensations of her formative years. This stark earth texture is laid in contrast to the flat sky, leaving a brooding, primitive atmosphere. She also spent much time in the Middle East and Africa, where the open spaces and dry clours of the desert are expressed in the composition and textures of her work.

Universal Blue (by Carol Bruton)

Her first solo exhibition at the Mes Gallery, Tehran in 1972, prompted the art critic Terry Graham to write: "The charm of her paintings is starkly terrestrial - suited for the age of Dubuffet. The paintings reflect a moody, brooding atmosphere, the dark aspect of the psyche. For example 'Infatuation 1' by its very title emphasized the paradox of outer levity and inner preoccupation. The simple block white houses in a Spanish village tower in Chirico geometric perspective over an empty street. An effective use of the palate knife recreates in relief the stucco walls and mud streets, set against an opaque Prussian blue sky. The bold heaping strokes of 'Heat' convey the Dubuffet-like sense of mud and earth. Here they are encased in rigid linearly defined forms. There is a sense of phasia, a groping muteness in these paintings, a crying out for expression. There is no levity in 'Infatuation' but rather obsession. But the sombreness is esthetic and occasionally the obsession is magnificent"

Following an exhibition at the Quadrangle Gallery, Oxford 1975, one viewer wrote giving his impressions: "I was in Oxford on Saturday and went to see your exhibition Carol. I've only seen one of your paintings before and wasn't sure what to expect. Well, I'm glad I made the effort - and effort it was as a stranger to Oxford's bewildering one-way system - as I thought your work was fantastic. If I was a man of means, I would have snapped a couple up on the spot. What better than to return from the crowded confines of a city work-day to the limitless horizons of a stark, uncluttered landscape? I once travelled by train through the plains of southern Spain and can still remember the spiritual impact, the unexplicably joyous light-headedness that the scenery awakened in me. In 6 square feet of canvas you have captured that sense of infinity. The sun-bleached ochres and browns, the torpid hamlets and the timelessness. A self-confirmed materialist, I all too rarely experience anthing approaching spiritual ecstasy and very few paintings have such an effect on me"

Carol has named a series of paintings 'Before 2004'. In 2005 she was given a book 'A Devotional Diary' by Two Listeners. The time spent apart with this book led her in a very different direction. The first evidence of this, came in her series showing the earth's crust - in blues, reds and golds. However the sculptures 'Transparent Pools' perhaps best show the spiritual dimension to Carol's work.

Carol currently lives and works in Beaulieu, the South of France.

Sculpture by Carol Bruton