Minneapolis artist Nancy Patrick Carney's imaginatively stylized paintings feature urban landscapes of cities and the diversity of people who live there. With an emphasis on design and expressive color, her watercolors, oil, acrylic and mixed media paintings give visual form to the vitality and energy of 21st century urban life.
Since she was a child growing up in Ohio, Nancy has been creating a variety of art. After graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a degree in art education, she moved to Chicago where she worked as an elementary art teacher, package designer and free-lance artist.
With her husband and sons, Carney lived in Hendersonville, NC and Marlton, NJ where she worked as a free-lance artist in package design, advertising, and product and children's book illustration.
After moving to Minneapolis in 1990, Carney shifted from commercial art to fine art with a renewed interest in painting. By taking classes with a variety of local and national artists, by entering local exhibitions and art fairs, and by participating in local art organizations, Nancy quickly became involved in the local art community.
Over the past twenty years her painting style has evolved from typical beginning watercolors to her very stylized "Gloria" paintings, her romantic composites of dreams and holiday travels, and her colorful viewpoints of life in the city. "I seem to work in series," says Carney. "A few years ago I did mostly water and sailboat paintings, often with torn paper. Then I was into borders and every painting was surrounded by a decorative pattern."
Since moving to a condo on the Mississippi River in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, Carney's art has become more urban. The diversity of people and the vibrant colors, shapes and lights of the metropolitan landscape have been an influence and an inspiration for her paintings. Most recently, she has been working on a series called "Bus Stop," a collection of paintings in a mixture of media that captures groups of urban bus riders in a variety of settings.
Like many artists, as Carney's work evolves, it is becoming more abstact. While still represenational, her figures are often faceless, so they are any woman, any man. The settings could be any city or tropical destination. Perhaps because of her background in commercial art, design is of primary importance. "A painting must work from 30 feet away if it is to draw you in for closer examination," Nancy says. Her paintings often express a peaceful, idealistic environment through the use of pure clean colors and simplifed shapes. Working from her studio/gallery in the Northrup King Building in northeast Minneapolis's historic Art's District, Nancy Patrick Carney draws upon her imagination, dreams and everyday life experiences for the inspiration of her paintings. The artistic journey is an exciting and creative adventure.
