Saturday, June 02, 2018

Carol Mahtab

Carol Mahtab (1935-2012), artist and environmental activist, lived in Digby Neck, Nova Scotia.
This post shows some images from her sketchbook, part of an exhibition of her work entitled still and moving that showed at the ARTsPLACE gallery in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2015.
Visitors were allowed to handle and photograph the sketchbooks, and these images were taken by my friend, Penny Berens.
"Carol's contemplative abstract works reflect her interest in Japanese Zen Buddhism, poetry, nature, and the foggy seascapes of her home in Sandy Cove"  says Janet Larkman, artist and curator of that exhibition.
"Her works appear simple, as if little is 'happening'. Yet when one gets still enough to be really present with them, there is an almost ominous quality, the content being so big it can never be fully known. "
I've kept these photos of Carol Mahtab's sketches for three years, and post them here so that they are easier for me to find.  (Perhaps you will like to see them as well.)

See more work by Carol Mahtab at this link.
"Because she was modest and never self-promoted, her work is not widely known.  Fortunately, she left behind a vast inventory of paintings created over her 60-year career.   Janet Larkman

11 comments:

Mo Crow said...

thank you for sharing these beautiful sketches and the link to Carol's abstracted landscapes, I am learning so much about abstract painting from you & your influences!

Margaret said...

I went to the link, printed off the gallery of pictures. I have to study them some more. Thank you!

Liz Hewitt said...

Thank you for sharing these images, so beautifully simple, but complex at the same time.

willow woman said...

Thank you for sharing and enriching my creative journey.
Carol’s work reflects a strong and quiet sense of place. How good it feels to be with this today.

Judy Martin said...

Carol Mahtab's paintings are amazing...these sketches just give a taste.

xo

Judy Martin said...

I can imagine you studying them....your landscape work in textiles having a conversation with Carol Mahtab's.

Judy Martin said...

well said, simple yet complex. xo

Judy Martin said...

the spirit in these pieces communicates

Kirsten said...

My goodness--these pages took my breath away. Thank you for sharing. I've saved them all so I can stare and study some more.

Velma Bolyard said...

so glad you introduced me to Carol's work!

Susan said...

I am so pleased that you value my mother in law's art work so much. she was a wonderfully prolific painter and artist who painted up until 2 weeks before she passed away. We have her last one that was still wet and delivered to a one woman show that was happening at the time of her death. She left a huge inventory of art. Regards, Susan MacCready Mahtab