Caryl Hull-Leavitt is a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. After a career as founder and creative director of a design and branding firm, she is now a full-time artist and art educator living and working in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her work has been published in Studio Visit Magazine and she exhibits extensively throughout New England and New York, including at Attleboro Arts Museum, ConcordArts and National Boston in Brookline. Her paintings will be on display at The Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York throughout 2024 and 2025.

Painting is my way of connecting to what I see and experience. My art is as much observation as it is memory and interpretation. The patterns and dynamics of a fleeting scene and familiar routines often catch my eye in unexpected ways. Throughout any given day I make quick sketches and snap photos to use for later reference. I view my subject matter as a catalyst for exploration and discovery, favoring expression over likeness. My current series of paintings focuses on tabletop set ups and Dutch flower arrangements. Both are worlds onto themselves, rich in beauty and abundance but equally stiff in their formality, seemingly isolated, and oddly unwelcoming. 

I reinterpret these scenes in way that makes sense to me­— with vibrant colors and loose brushstrokes--injecting life into their stillness. Individual flowers, vases, plates, wine goblets, etc., lose their ‘alone-ness’ and morph into a greater whole—a party of color and rhythm with an invitation to come on in and explore. Ultimately, my work is about optimism and joy.

I count Josef Albers’ color theory and Black Mountain College’s reliance on available materials, the rigorous brushstrokes of Expressionist painters, and the many current and contemporary artists with whom I study and exchange ideas as major influences.