I was born in Providence and grew up in suburban Massachusetts.  I enjoyed drawing and sewing when I was in high school, so I earned a Diploma from the School of Fashion Design in Boston and worked as an assistant to couturier Alfred Fiandaca.  Then a job at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston sparked my interest in painting.  I enrolled at the Art Institute of Boston and completed my Bachelor’s Degree from Lesley University.  I went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

I am currently exhibiting my work through the ART In Embassies Program and the DeCordova Corporate Program.  I have presented solo shows at the Danforth Museum of Art through the New England Currents series, the Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, and the Marran Gallery at Lesley University.  I have participated in group shows at the Chrysler Museum of Art, the New Bedford Art Museum, Bristol Community College, the Attleboro Arts Museum, and the Fuller Craft Museum.  I am the recipient of a grant from the St. Botolph Club Foundation.

My home and studio are located in Holliston, Massachusetts.  In addition to painting, I am a teacher and writer.  I teach painting, drawing, and design at Framingham State College, and watercolor and figure drawing at the Danforth Museum of Art.  I also write art reviews and a monthly series of artist profiles called “In The Studio” for The New Bedford Standard-Times.

Read “Curls and Swirls: The Art of Catherine Carter” by Barbara Rizza Mellin, The Middlesex Beat, May 2004

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

“Sky, Stem, Stream,” New England Currents Series, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA, 2005
“Interlacings,” Marran Gallery, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, 2004
“New Paintings,” Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, Boston, MA, 2003
“New Paintings,” Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, Boston, MA, 2001
“Collage Paintings,” Facets Gallery, Fall River, MA, 1997
Commencement gala, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA, 1997

TWO- AND THREE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS:

“Nature Works,” Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, Brookline, MA, 2008
“Driven to Abstraction,” Owen Smith Shuman Gallery, Groton, MA, 2006
“Quinta Essentia: Three Abstract Artists,” Borowicz Gallery, Dartmouth, MA, 2006
“CON/TEXT: Impulse, Order, Response,” Grimshaw-Gudewicz Gallery, Bristol Community College, Fall River, MA, 2004
“Natural Forces: Three Artists Experience the Landscape,” Art Space Gallery, Maynard, MA, Proposal writer, co-curator, participating artist, 2003
“Drawings, Objects, Ceramics,” Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, Boston, MA, 2002
“Abstraction in the Year 2000,” Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, Boston, MA, 2000
“Spring Series,” Bromfield Art Gallery, Boston, MA, 1999

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

ART In Embassies Program, Works on display at the U.S. Embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon, 2008-2011
“A New Perspective on Politics,” Artworks, New Bedford, MA, 2008
“Women of the Cloth,” Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA, 2008
“Essential Elements,” Hera Gallery, Wakefield, RI, Juried by Judith Tolnick of Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Rhode Island, 2007
“Illuminations,” Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA, 2007
“Massachusetts Artists 2007,” Brush Art Gallery, Lowell, MA, Juried by Raphaela Platow of Rose Art Museum, 2007
“National Prize Show,” Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, Juried by Thomas W. Lentz of Harvard University Art Museums, 2007
“Small Works,” Attleboro Arts Museum, Attleboro, MA, 2007, 2006, 2003
“Inviting Response: Celebrating Our First Decade,” New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA, Curated by David B. Boyce, 2006
“ON 40 AT 40,” Bristol Community College, Fall River, MA, Juried by Judith Tannenbaum of RISD Museum, 2006
“Compulsive Expressions,” Blackstone River Gallery, Woonsocket, RI, 2005
“Foundation on Parade,” St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA, 2003
“Rhymes & Rhythms,” ArtWorks at Dover Street, New Bedford, MA, 2000
“New Art 2000,” MPG Contemporary, Boston, MA, 2000
“Ninth Triennial,” Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA, Juried by Carl Belz of Rose Art Museum, 1999
“Gridworks,” Hera Gallery, Wakefield, RI, Juried by Maureen O’Brien of RISD Museum, 1999
“Red,” Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, Juried by Peter Nisbet of Harvard University Art Museums, 1999
“Inviting the Unknown: Six Abstract Painters,” New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA, Proposal writer, co-curator, participating artist, 1998
“Women in Art ’98,” Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA, 1998
“Irene Leache Memorial Exhibition,” Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Juried by Carolina Ponce de Léon of El Museo del Barrio, 1998

AWARDS:

St. Botolph Club Foundation, Grant-in-Aid, 2002
Unitarian Universalist Association Art Scholarship, 1996

EDUCATION:

Master of Fine Art in Painting, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA, 1997
Post-baccalaureate studies, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA, 1994
Bachelor of Art, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, 1993
The Art Institute of Boston, MA, 1986-88
Diploma, The School of Fashion Design, Boston, MA, 1983

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

“Studio Visit,” Open Studios Press, 2008
“Call and Response: NBAM Exhibit Has People Talking” by Joanna McQuillan Weeks, The New Bedford Standard-Times, August 22, 2006
Exhibition Catalog, “ON 40 AT 40,” Bristol Community College, 2006
“Turning 40 Artfully,” The New Bedford Standard-Times, January 26, 2006
“Curls and Swirls: The Art of Catherine Carter” by Barbara Rizza Mellin, The Middlesex Beat, May 2004
“BCC Exhibit Places Artists’ Dialogue in CON/TEXT” by David B. Boyce, The New Bedford Standard-Times, February 1, 2004
“Painter Throws Curves at Genovese/Sullivan” by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 19, 2003
“A Visual Question-and-Answer Session” by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 27, 2002
“Giller’s Towers are a Delight in the Detail” by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 22, 2001
“Thayer Street Abstracts” by Christina Pugh, artsMEDIA, Summer 2000
Exhibition Catalog, Ninth Triennial, Fuller Museum of Art, 2000
“Take Concrete Look at Triennial’s Abstracts” by Mary Sherman, Boston Sunday Herald, September 26, 1999
“Fairhaven Artist Exhibits in Boston,” The New Bedford Standard-Times, June 24, 1999

"The paintings pop off the wall, thanks to the sheer tension of her gestures and thanks to the contrast: All the paintings are either black-on-white or white-on-black. … Carter displays a handful of different recipes. Many of the 'Coil' paintings bring to mind the joyful wagging of a dog's tail. Two larger works, 'Curve' and 'Swirl,' sport colliding loop-the-loops, like a slinky gone horribly awry. … The white-on-black pieces are sexier, provoking an Op Art kind of retinal buzz. But the black-on-white paintings are more satisfying: The white veils but does not hide dark gestures just beneath the surface, which suggest shadows, depth, and inner turmoil. So 'Swirl' shows those aggressive, black curlicues careening over the canvas as white hazes over their sharp edges and obscures occasional lines, imbuing the painting with spaciousness."

"Giller's towers are a delight in the detail” by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 22, 2001

"Patterning and technique are consistent, but the paintings vary widely in tone. 'Bouquet' starts with a spray-painted pattern of plum-toned rings with pale veins. Carter cut her fabric into rough Xs and pasted them in a diagonal grid on the white-painted canvas, so white squares dapple the surface in a moody checkerboard. Ethereal purple rings play tag with the squares, shifting from foreground to background, making a pleasing counterpoint between solidity and haze, reality and imagination. … ‘Hook' features a pattern of two hooks looping away from each other, white on a black ground, repeated in horizontal stripes across the canvas. They could be handcuffs, eyeglasses, breasts -- whatever they are, they're disturbing, even harsh. Carter's formula for making art generates work both pleasing and harrowing, and that's good."

"Thayer Street Abstracts" by Christina Pugh, artsMEDIA, Summer 2000

" ... Catherine Carter is also concerned with the margin between painting or design and writing, but to very different ends. As exemplified in 'Crust,' her mixed media work features patterning, in a proto-script of thickened white loops set in dark horizontal blocks. In these pieces, she achieves an effect of primitive marking that is somewhat reminiscent of the expressionistic pre-drip Pollock. Her patterning exceeds the frame of the canvas, just as the white embryonic 'writing' exceeds its bricked horizontal units. As in all good abstraction, the work points to a certain writing before the writing: writing what one didn't know one knew. … All three of the artists here show a seriousness of abstract purpose that is refreshing in a time of sensationalism and nostalgia. Their works exhibit a maximum of formal mastery coupled with a minimum of self-consciousness."