Artist Profile: Damon Carter

"Nature, My Great Mentor"

By Heike Hellmann-Brown

As long as he can remember Damon Carter has been interested in creating art starting at the young age of 3 with drawing cowboys and comic book characters to the portrait of Ambassador Andrew Young that was commissioned by Georgia Public Broadcasting. As a child I encountered artists at my grammar school and knew this was what I wanted to do, Carter remembers. Watching them paint ignited a burning desire in me to recreate life on canvas as realistically as possible. The trend of the times however was Abstract Expressionism; therefore Carter chose a career in commercial art as a photo-realistic illustrator and graphic designer. I got hired right after graduating from the University of Georgia and stayed with this company for 40 years, the artist recalls.

Dedicated to his corporate career, Carter painted only on the weekends and for his own enjoyment, but embraced the rare opportunity to study with preeminent figurative sculptor Richard MacDonald. After his retirement in 2001 Carter decided to follow his heart and focus on a second career as a professional artist. Loving the rolling hills of Cherokee County, he moved to Hickory Flat and began taking workshops with noted artists around the nation.

Today the quality of his work is recognized both locally and nationally. Damon Carter was honored as a finalist in the Artist Magazines National Portrait Contest from a field of over 10,000 entries, he was a finalist twice in the prestigious International Cleo Awards, and in 2011 he was juried into the Oil Painters of Americas National Show in Coeur d Alene, Idaho. Clients and collectors of Damons work include such notables as Ted Turner, The MeadWestvaco Corporation, the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA, Georgia Tech University, and Standard Office Systems in Atlanta.

Interestingly, Damon Carters quest for realism that made him turn his back to a career in fine art earlier in his life, is now transitioning into a more impressionistic style. I love the process of painting and believe a true artist never stops learning, Carter notes. By studying the works of the old masters in museums, galleries and my growing studio library and experimenting with various techniques, I am now beginning to learn how to incorporate a piece of myself into a painting. A big part of creating a painting is knowing what to put in, what to leave out, how to emphasize the points of interest and what you can achieve with energetic brushstrokes with the goal to create an image that goes beyond recording the visual facts of a photograph.

A former President of the Portrait Society of Atlanta, Carter is known for his portrait work and also teaches his skills, but his passion is plein-air landscapes and the challenges they bring. A poem he wrote for his son Greg, a fellow artist, describes it best:

Mentors
So much Ive learned from masters past,
And from living painters too.
Amazed I stand at all they did,
And tasks theyve helped me through,
But painting in Gods open air,
Mid mountain, field and stream,
By far the best classroom of all,
Plein air painters know well what I mean,
To master kinsmen of the brush,
Indebted Ill always be
But you dear Nature, my great mentor,
Im most in awe of thee!

DamonCarterArtist.com