Carole Silverstein’s paintings delve into ornament and decoration to deeply explore the spiritually symbolic systems of the various cultural landscapes from which they derive. They are trance-like, densely layered, and painted by hand with acrylic inks on mylar, a surface which allows for translucency and reflectance. Using ornamental forms from various cultures including Islamic geometries, Japanese cloud patterns, Spanish interlace, she explores ideas of sameness and difference, harmony and discord, the human and the divine. Her juxtapositions show her interest between divergent belief systems and their points of contact. In these rich and luminous surfaces she creates labyrinthine experiences and spaces of hand-made seduction and extravagance designed to invite sensuous dreaming. Other influences informing her work and life are Feminism, Buddhism, Yoga, and other mystical traditions.
Carole Silverstein is a Los Angeles based artist who has exhibited in galleries and alternative venues throughout the US, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco. In 2015 she showed at the 56th Venice Biennale in an exhibit entitled “We Must Risk Delight: 20 Artists from Los Angeles” at the Magazzino del Sale, Venice Italy. Additionally, her work was featured in an exhibit which traveled to London, Paris, Berlin, Manila, Capetown, and Johannesburg. Her most recent solo show "our mingling spirits" was in April/May 2019 at Nancy Toomey Fine Art in San Francisco. Her solo show “in your thousand other forms” is her first with Gallery 169. She received her MFA from Queens College, CUNY and her BFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, with additional study in Umbria, Italy.
A Painting Catalogue with essay by Elizabeta Betinski of BardoLA was published in December 2018. In 2000, a book collaboration of her collages and the poetry of Jim Henderson was published entitled “Clearly These Clouds”. Her artworks are in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Citibank, Art in US Embassies (US Embassy Djibouti), Art for Healing, The Salser Collection, and numerous private collections. She lives with her husband and son in Los Angeles.