How Surrealist Artist Carina Earl Creates Colorful Dreamscapes

Carina Earl is a Raleigh-based artist known for her vivid oil paintings exploring bio-futuristic landscapes and consciousness and evolution themes. In this interview, Carina shares her journey from a sensitive, imaginative child to a creator of colorful dreamscapes, drawing inspiration from her meditative visions and deep connection with the natural world. Through her work, she explores abstract concepts like light versus dark, life and death, and the interconnectedness of all life forms.

Carina Earl is a Raleigh-based artist who creates colorful dreamscapes in oil paint. Her work centers around bio-futuristic worlds inspired by themes of consciousness and evolution. She earned her BFA from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California. Earl has recently been recognized as one of the “100 emerging artists of 2024” by Arts to Hearts Magazine and selected for the Arts to Hearts “Art and Woman” book. She is currently a published artist with Women United Art Movement Magazine. Earl has exhibited across the United States with Stanford University in California, VAE Gallery in Raleigh, NC, and 311 Gallery in Raleigh, NC. She has also produced a 20’x25’ mural for Philadelphia Mural Arts and Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. Earl’s paintings have been featured internationally with the Toronto Visionary Arts Gallery and Leoni Arts Project Portugal, and he was the summer of 2023 cover artist for Goddess Arts Magazine in Germany.

1. How do you translate abstract concepts like light vs. dark into the surreal worlds in your paintings?

I think the main way I translate these concepts in my work is through the lens of life and death, pleasure and pain, fear of mystery, and the joy of possibility that mystery can elicit. For example, in my latest piece, “Golden Idol,” the character experiences the ecstasy of biological life and the sun. Yet, she is submerged deep in water and surrounded by poisonous plants and insects.

I have been in love and awe with the natural world and the mere fact that I can think and perceive. Moss, in particular, symbolizes that the land is healthy and abundant with life.

Carina Earl

2. How do the visions you experience between wakefulness and sleep influence your art?

I have been practicing this meditation for most of my life, and it is the psychological state from which most of my compositions are born. In this place, my mind is untethered from the cyclical thoughts of daily life, and subconscious information can act in a kind of free-form state of creation while the conscious mind integrates the new information.

3. How does your painting process evolve as you layer colors and build your compositions?

Honestly, my process is very messy. I am going for an ethereal quality, so I never start with a drawing. Beginning with a drawing produces a solid feeling to a finished piece. I always paint the largest shapes and build up to the smaller details. Objects move around quite a bit, so much sketching and erasing with paint occurs. I am trying to fit these vast, complex worlds that are often multidimensional into a small 2d frame. At a certain point when the composition is set and the basic forms are complete, I call it magic time. It’s when the beautiful details can be added, and the painting starts to come alive.

4. What draws you to motifs like moss and galaxies, and how do they reflect themes of consciousness and evolution?

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love and awe with the natural world and the mere fact that I can think and perceive. Moss, in particular, symbolizes that the land is healthy and abundant with life. I am unusual in that I remember everything from about two days after I was born. I remember being a baby, and one of my first perceptions of my existence was shock. I knew that any of this was happening and that I had all of these senses to experience it with. This is a core perception that I continue to experience to this day. Since I was a child, I have been trying to piece together how all of this is connected: the biological life of the earth, my consciousness, and what more could be out there among the stars. As I got older, I began to think more deeply about these concepts: where they came from and where they are going. I believe that when I am in that hypnogogic state during meditation, my mind loves to generate possible answers to these questions through imagery. Through my work, I am telling the story of how life has come to be in the universe and where it is going throughout the eons.

I believe that we are in a critical time right now and that the more people who hold these possibilities in their minds, the greater potential we have for playing a role in creating a universe that is teaming with life.

Carina Earl

5. What do you hope viewers understand about humanity and consciousness from your paintings?

I continue to create art to inspire new ways of thinking about all biological life and its inextricable link to consciousness. I believe that humanity has incredible potential to destroy life on Earth or facilitate the possibility that life continues to flourish and play a role in the seeding of life on other planets and other solar systems. Through art, I envision a future in which life permeates the universe. I believe that we are in a critical time right now and that the more people who hold these possibilities in their minds, the greater potential we have for playing a role in creating a universe that is teaming with life.

Carina Earl’s art isn’t just about creating beautiful images; it’s about exploring deep questions and sharing her unique view of the world. Her paintings invite us to think about life, consciousness, and what it means to be human. Carina’s journey through art reminds us how creativity can help us understand ourselves and our place in the universe. To learn more about Carina, click the following links to visit her profile.