Artist's Bio

Carmen Torruella-Quander, a Dominican American raised in Washington, D. C., began her formal artistic studies at the Corcoran School of art in Washington.  She continued artistic studies in New York (Pratt Institute, The Art Students League, and New York University).  She spent seven years with a small museum where she apprenticed under the tutelage of accomplished curators.

Now a well-known representational artist, art educator, and curator, her works are held in many corporate and private collections nationally and internationally.  Carmen continues to enhance her artistic capabilities through worldwide travel and education, but emphasizes that she uses her classical form to relate to her personal daily experiences.

In 2012 Carmen was competitively selected as one of 10 artists whose artistic works and legacy narratives are being documented, digitalized, and stored, through the Embark Program, and are available through Columbia University and the Guggenheim Museum both of New York.  The last show entitled "My Travels - My Art" held at the famed Parrish Gallery, was a one-woman show which featured Carmen's work.

Statement

My paintings require little or no thought and I mean that literally.  For over 40 years I have painted images based mostly on intuition and feeling.  I take time to look at the world around me, constantly looking for life or the light that attract meaning, the calm and the profound.  It is only when I am forced to speak about my work that I actually think about what it is I am doing and why.

At first glance, my body of work may seem pretty scattered - realistic still life, children, landscapes, and diverse ethnics.  There is, however, a common thread of consistency underlying my many diverse works; hopefully they all summon forth calmness and beauty which in turn evokes a peaceful soothing vibe.

Thoughts wanting expression emerge through pigments on canvas and once manifested can affect people for centuries.  My work takes short lived beauty and makes it more accessible for longer.  I believe that the creative arts can lift us to our higher selves and remind us that life is worth living.