Carla Wilkins
ACHC Artist Grant Award; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: 2D
Carla Wilkins grew up in Tampa, Florida and earned a Bachelor of Science in visual art at The Florida State University followed by a Masters in Art Education from The University of New Mexico. She has taught in elementary and secondary schools, and loves bringing out the creativity in all children and in every kind of medium. She claims teaching art was the best gift she found in life, and fervently believes that “art can save the world”!
Carla’s drive to create has always been inherently therapeutic, which at one point led her to study art therapy under art therapist Maxine Hull in Atlanta as well as a year of graduate work at Florida State. Her greatest influences have come from relationships with people, outdoor adventures and a few curve balls that are inevitable in everyone’s life, good and bad. In other words, she paints her own experiences. In this regard, she finds Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits and the narrative paintings by Jacob Lawrence among the most inspiring art. Expressing her stories is a personal process in hopes of always moving forward, which can often take years of revisiting the same work adding new layers of oil paint, oil pastel, linocut prints, chalk pastels and hot glue. Another approach she uses to improve herself as a human being has been painting overlooked patterns in rocks, tree bark, waves and leaves, attempting to reflect the metaphors found between nature and the human psyche. Peaceful perspectives are the gifts in these studies. Carla’s passion for hiking, rock climbing, swimming and kayaking allowed for intimate discoveries in the beauty of earth’s elements, from beaches to boulders, from rivers to deserts. She appreciates the landscape wherever she lives which has been Kansas City, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Tallahassee and currently in Tampa, Florida.
Exhibits
2017 “Artists: The Soul of the Community” group show, Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
2017 “Downtown Arts Invasion” group show, Bamboozle Cafe, Tampa, FL
2016 “I Did it My Way”group show, Stirling Gallery, Dunedin, FL
2016 “Possibilties of Perception”, Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
2016 “Local Spring Art Show”, Rare Hues Gallery, Tampa, FL
2016 “Gasparilla Festival of the Arts” Emerging Artist Recipient, Tampa, FL
2015 “Winter in the Park” Art Fair, Huff Promotions, Vero Beach, Florida
2015 “Art Crawl” Art Fair, The Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida
2015 Juried International Exhibit “Social Selfies: Constructing Community”, William Johnson Gallery, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
2015 Juried Art Show “Inspiration”, Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, FL
2014 Ewha Cultural Exhibition, 621 Gallery, Tallahassee, FL
2011 Juried Art Competition and Show, Arts Clayton Gallery, Jonesboro, GA
2010 Juried Art Show of High School Educators of Georgia, Art Institute of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
2007 Group Exhibit, “Water”, Sharptop Arts Center, Jasper, Georgia
2006 Juried Annual Art Show, Harris Arts Center, Calhoun, Georgia
2006 Group Exhibit, “Fiber Arts Show, Sharptop Arts Center, Jasper, Georgia
2004 Created and presented Curriculum of African American Art
National Art Education Association Conference, Denver, Colorado
2004 Group Exhibit, “Graduate Exhibit for Spring”, Masley Gallery, University of New Mexico
Education
2004 Master of Arts in Art Education, University of New Mexico
1999 Bachelor of Science in Visual Art, Florida State University