CAROLYN HISEL BIO
CAROLYN YOUNG HISEL
1942 - 2017
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 “Passages,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
2014 “Alloquerer,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
2012 “The Numinous Landscape,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville,
2010 “Sheltered,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
2009 “New Work,” Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington, KY
2007 “Adrift,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
2005 “Sunlit: New Paintings by Carolyn Hisel,” Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington, KY
2003 “Escapist Paintings,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
2002 “Implications,” Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
2001 “Short Stories - New Narrative Paintings,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
“Signs,” Malton Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
2000 “Prayer and Meditation Series,” Maralyn Wilson Gallery, Birmingham, AL
“Done for Fun,” Artist’s Attic, Lexington, KY
1999 “Garden Works,” B. Deemer Gallery, Louisville, KY
1998 “Edge of the World,” Living Arts and Sciences Center, Lexington, KY
1996 “Strange Waters,” Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
1995 “Night Riders- New Work,” Malton Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
“New Work,” Maralyn Wilson Gallery, Birmingham, AL
1994 “Pilgrims: Works on Paper,” Casa de la Cultura, Ecuador
1991 “Encampment of Angels,” Maralyn Wilson Gallery, Birmingham, AL
1989 “Other Rooms,” Headly Whitney Museum, Lexington, KY, retrospective
1988 “Other Light,” Yvonne Rapp Gallery, Louisville, KY
1987 “Passage,” Yvonne Rapp Gallery, Louisville, KY
1981 “Album,” Asbury College, Wilmore, KY
1975 “New Work,” McCann-Wood Gallery, Lexington, KY
SELECTED INVITATIONAL AND JURIED EXHIBITIONS
2004 “Matter of Spirit,” Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY
2002 “4 Painters’ Points of View,” Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, KY
2000 “Language of the Land,” Traveling Exhibition, Ecuador and KY
“Southworks 2000,” OCAF Art Center, Watkinsville, GA
1997 “New Painting,” Morlan Gallery Transylvania University, Lexington, KY
1989 “Kentucky to Ecuador,” Museum of the Casa de la Cultura, Quito, Ecuador
“A Kentucky Show,” Museum of Art, Ogunquit, Maine
1987 “The Kentuckians: 1987,” National Arts Club, New York and Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, KY
1985 “The Human Figure,” Morlan Gallery, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY
1984 “Landscape “84,” Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH
1983 “Kentucky Tradition in American Landscape Painting,” University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY
“Emerging Kentucky Artists,” Kentucky State Capitol, Frankfort, KY
1979 “Mid-America Art Exhibition,” Owensboro, KY
AWARDS
2010 First Merit Award, “Southworks 2000”
1998 Kentucky Arts Council, Al Smith Fellowship- Professional Assistance Award
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky
Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, Kentucky
SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
Community Health Systems, Franklin, Tennessee
Brown-Forman Corporation, Louisville, KY
Louisville Gas and Electric, Louisville, KY
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH
Hilliard and Lyons, Inc. Collection, Louisville, KY
Central Bank, Lexington, KY
Athens Paper Company, Nashville, KY
Hyatt-Regency Hotel, Louisville, KY
Karges Furniture Co., Evansville, KY
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CATALOGUES
New American Painting, Open Studios Press, Wellesley, MA
A Kentucky Show, Museum of Art of Ogunquit, Maine
The Kentuckians: 1987, Owensboro Museum of Art, Owensboro, KY
Kentucky Art, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY
Capitol Art in Kentucky, Kentucky Department of Art
Kentucky Tradition in American Landscape Painting: 1800 to Present, Owensboro Museum of Art, Owensboro, KY
Mid-America Art Exhibition, Owensboro Museum of Art, Owensboro, KY
ABOUT THE ARTIST
A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Carolyn Hisel’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the Eastern United States since 1975. Over 20 one-person exhibits have been shown in four states and in Ecuador. Lexington’s Headley-Whitney Museum presented a 20-year retrospective in 1989. The paintings have won various awards, including a museum Purchase Award from the Owensboro Mid-States Competition, and an Al Smith Fellowship Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. The paintings have been included in many invitational and juried shows around the region.
Hisel was educated in the public schools. “…(H)er family lived with her paternal grandparents and her Grandmother, a skillful artist, encouraged Carolyn to draw and print at an early age. …(She was) lost in admiration for the realistic, descriptive paintings done in previous centuries, her Grandmother Young’s influence.”
Hisel is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and her greatest influence during this time was from a New York painter, Frederic Thursz. She has said that his passion for abstract expressionism and the “power of contemporary painting came to her mind with shattering impact.” Debates about art theory and frequent museum trips led her to respect modern art and to love its freedom of expression. Two years following graduation were spent in Europe where she taught art in public schools in London before returning to settle with her family in Lexington. She considered the need to live in New York, with its art world, to produce her art, but determined that she would miss the quiet life of Lexington, Kentucky. She also found that she was not only unhappy when she was away from home, but also when she was not making her art. It was after these discoveries that she “…began to explore the territory between abstraction and depiction, and the two influences have persisted throughout her career.”
You can see in her paintings “…that abstraction is usually figurative- or suggests the figure or the landscape, while her descriptive or narrative work is usually heavily flavored with the abstract.”
