Carrie Oyama (CO 166)

CARRIE OYAMA

Born: 1948, New York, New York
Has practiced at Creative Growth since the mid-1980s

Carrie Oyama's drawings dance across the page as a multi-layered visual performance. Her work is inherently expressive in its line quality, which effectively communicates a complex understanding of the human body as it moves through space. Oyama's figures are taken either from photographs or the depths of her imagination and memory, and are often executed with her non-dominant hand. Oyama occasionally accentuates her ink drawings with varied washes of color that float with iridescent or pale-hued veils. The artist possesses a rich artistic background, having majored in fine arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York in the late 1960s. It was also in New York that Carrie was involved in the Pedestrian Art Movement and participated in performances at the Whitney Museum and Judson Church before moving to Berkeley in 1979. Oyama arrived at Creative Growth in the 1980s, a tenure in which she largely experimented with soft sculpture and ceramics. Since 2014, Carrie has concentrated on drawing delicate and refined compositions that connect to her past experiences and subconscious mind.

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