In this most recent body of work, Aaron Maier-Carretero turns his gaze outward toward nature to explore the formal aspects of painting. Working from intuition, he captures the basic shapes and forms of familiar objects and uses them as a point of departure to develop his abstractions. Natural elements such as waves and flowers, and man-made items like fountains, feature prominently in this new work. His interpretation of nature stems from a subconscious source and is driven by the materiality of the medium and color.
While his previous body of work was a more direct interrogation of his upbringing and personal memories, Maier-Carretero’s new body of work is intentionally made open to the viewer’s interpretation. Work that was once was grounded in figuration and boxed in by personal identity has now become lyrical, metaphorical, and wholly open to one’s own understanding.
Aaron Maier-Carretero (b. 1987) is a Latinx visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He obtained his BFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has exhibited at the Queens Museum, NY; Sculpture Center, NY; The National Arts Club, New York City; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL; Phillips Collection, DC; The University of Maryland Art Gallery; the Washington Project for the Arts; and others. His work is held in the collections of the Phillips Collection; the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in Washington, DC; The University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, MD; the Art Bank Collection, DC; The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; as well as numerous private collections.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
breakfast, 2020
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 x 1.5 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
down, 2021
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 x 1.5 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
la mordida, 2018
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
the moon in june, 2021
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 x 1.5 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
mark cutting limes for his mom, 2021
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
branch dr, 2018
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
waltzing with bears, 2020
Oil on canvas
55 x 72 in.
Aaron Maier-Carretero
12-17-87, 2021
Oil on canvas
47 x 72 in.
Such enigmatic storytelling is found in every room at All Stars, thanks to Phillips' keen collector's eye. And after his death in 1966, his museum's curators maintained his mission of supporting newer artists. There's Los Angeles-based Aaron Maier-Carretero, whose large oil painitng "not in front of the kids" is a jarring confrontation of domestic abuse, love and tension in home life.
Maier-Carretero’s series was intimate in a different manner. It took a look into the mind of an artist in a creative rut. He spent two months painting peonies every day. His struggle to get out of his head and delve into the nitty-gritty of the art form reflects a frantic desire for inspiration. No peony painting is the same as the next. As he moved from canvas to canvas, he made the flowers with new textures and tones. The result is best represented in the last paintings he made for the series. In them, he used fewer layers of acrylic and instead portrayed the outline of a peony, using only the necessary strokes.
There are a lot of paintings of beds, bedrooms, and kitchen tables, perhaps the result of some pandemic hangover. One example is Aaron Maier-Carretero. His painting series “A Lobster Named Dinner”—so named because, well, he had a pet lobster in childhood and it was called Dinner—captures his home and reworks family interiors from photos.
Celebrating a shared cultural history of unstoppable resilience, collective action, and rising up against oppressive, anti-progress systems, Creative Resilience is a curated space of safe expression, joy and uplift, systemic overhauls and reimagined futures — things which would perennially benefit everyone, but all the more so in this prolonged period of darkness, threats, struggles, and isolation.
I also like Aaron Maier-Carretero’s somewhat disturbing enormous painting titled not in front of the kids. The palpable, hidden violence is terrifying in the work.