Arden Carlson
Artist Site


       
                              untitled drawing
    
               poplar, basswood, ply

               18 1/4 H x 25 3/4 W

               July 2025

               Photo Credit: John Carlano





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My affinity for material stems from an isolated Kentucky upbringing, where I roamed the woods and watched my father, from the bottom of the ladder, building one house after another. It was here that I acquired a language for wood: understanding that each object began as the trunk of a tree - and it is the maker’s job to regard such integrity throughout any process of transformation.

Woodworking is a vehicle to explore enchantments with form, transformation, and spirituality.

Drawing from my upbringing in the American South, I’ve often employed domestic or rural motifs as points of departure, reinterpreting them through abstraction to question how labor, identity, and desire are embedded within the built environment.

In recent work, I have shifted from constructing instantly recognizable objects—a radio, a fence line, a bird in flight—toward more ambiguous objects. These new forms have a certain “hard-to-place-ness”, inviting personal contemplation and an exploration of the interior landscape; a shift drawn by the legacy of surrealism and our aptitudes to exist amongst intense political and social structures.








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