Clea Carlsen was born into a family abounding with creative, arts-loving people and, also having been raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a well-known mecca for artists and crafts-people, her childhood was a perpetual immersion in the arts. Carlsen attended Bard College in New York where she majored in studio arts receiving her BA in 1998 with an emphasis in painting and printmaking. Before graduating from Bard, she also studied art at the University of New Mexico, and spent a summer each in Italy, Greece, and France. After leaving Bard, Carlsen worked briefly as a decorative painter and then moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a scenic artist at the Pasadena Playhouse for 10 years. During down-time from the theater she undertook various artistic projects of her own eventually leading to an interest in working with clay. The affinity for the medium was immediate, proving to supply her with a creative drive that she had failed to find in painting. After completing several ceramics handbuilding classes, she moved back to Santa Fe to develop her first body of work and has been pursuing her career as a dedicated ceramic artist ever since. Carlsen’s highly-detailed figurative sculpture presents a personal mythology with a classical tilt. The work delves into the perplexities of the human condition and the more individual experiences of being, often especially elaborating the particularities a female perspective. Her work has been exhibited in Santa Fe, New York City, Chicago, and Miami.
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