Date of event: October 15, 2011, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Caroline Wampole is a self-taught painter and teacher. Caroline turned her abundant creative energies towards painting in 1999, when she studied with Bay Area figurative painter M. Louise Stanley. She moved to Paris in 2002 and lived there for several years, developing an original portrait style inspired by the bold colors and compositions of post-Impressionist paintings. These early portraits led to shows in Paris, as well as ongoing portrait commissions from clients in Europe and the U.S.

In 2009, Caroline returned to her adopted creative home of San Francisco, and set up in a sunny studio in the Mission. In addition to being a full-time artist, she is also a popular painting teacher who is especially gifted at making the creative process accessible to beginning artists.

Caroline shares, “I paint from life and/or photographs, and most recently, from still photos taken from television. This current portrait series is based on the show Mad Men, which represents a form of time travel for me; going back to a different era of America, to the world of my parents when they were young.”

“My goal is not realism, but to create a likeness and a truth about a subject which cannot be captured in a photograph. Thus, each painting is not so much about a single moment in time as it is about a relationship between myself and a subject, over time, the paint literally being the medium that connects us to one another,” explains the artist.

The ‘mis-en-scene’ quality to some of her paintings can be attributed to her early background in theater. “Rhythm and composition also play a big part,” says Caroline, “referring back to my years as a musician and songwriter. Like a story, a song, or a performance, I would like each painting of mine to be a world of its own: whole and contained, a place the viewer can step into and explore, and hopefully enjoy.”