I don’t skateboard. (I mean other than standing on my husband’s board and doing a little scooty scoot.) My mom broke her leg skateboarding when I was a baby and the story is part of family lore so…I have always been a bit intimidated to try. But, now that I have had my first broken bone (crossing a street), I am less afraid to try. Skateboarding is on my list of new things to try this summer.
I recently discovered Matthew Carter when I came across the above painting in my on-line wanderings. I saved it. My desire to skateboard is so that I may feel as free as this woman looks, carving along a long strip of pavement feeling the wind blow past. A sweep through Matthew Carter’s gallery of work provided lots of beautiful paintings. After I got past the fact that the painting, City Skater, looks like Jared Leto, I was struck by the atmosphere in Carter’s paintings. Carter’s city streets are beautifully quiet. Like they can be really early on a Sunday morning in the middle of Summer. It makes the city elements – buildings, roads, ramps, less like backgrounds and more like subjects themselves.
And while it was the skater girl that drew me to Matthew Carter’s artwork, I am loving his car park paintings so hard. I love the shadows and light play. How beautiful he makes the car park.
Matthew Carter lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand.
The skateboarders looks so free, don’t they? Make me want to hop on one and roll away!
Free. Exactly Peady. You should join me in my attempts to ‘hop on and roll away’. Gotta start somewhere right?
Right!
I can picture the horrified faces of the kiddos as I go barreling down a ramp at the skate park! Hah!
That is the stuff of future therapy sessions and tell-all autobiographies, right there! 😀