CAITLIN BLOMSTROM

Caitlin Blomstrom (she/her) is an artist and arts professional with a BFA in Painting + Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She was an artist-in-residence at Penland School of Craft in 2023 and at Kunstraum in Brooklyn, NY in 2022. She was featured in New American Paintings in 2018. Caitlin lives and works in Nashville, TN.

I create paintings and art objects as a way to interpret my surroundings and to re-contextualize everyday encounters. I am interested in representing quiet, mundane encounters, humorous and uncanny scenes that you might find on a walk or in an artist’s studio. Some of my paintings employ a painting technique called trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye). Using this technique allows me to document ideas and experiences happening around me by reproducing life-like paintings of objects and scenes around me. In some paintings I have rendered curled painter’s tape and hyper-realistic wood grain in an effort to encourage the viewer to look closer. Though the trompe l'oeil effect is fleeting, what remains after the viewer realizes that the curled tape is not real, are questions about authenticity and materiality. I also like that these paintings document the artist's process. An ongoing series in my practice are paintings of abandoned flowers which I find and photograph for reference. At their lightest, these paintings are meant to be humorous and at their heaviest they exist to contemplate the passage of time, decay and death.

I also create small plein air paintings which are meant to be a record of time spent observing. I am interested in representing mundane scenes in the traditional medium of oil paint because in elevating and reframing the context of an ordinary scene a value shift occurs. For me, the decision to paint small moments is a deliberate act to elevate the ordinary. As an artist and curator, it is important for me to connect with the creative community. Observing other disciplines, sharing ideas, and building relationships with other makers is invaluable to my practice.