Carl Arroyo

Carl completed a degree in Art & Design in 1989, and soon established himself as a ceramicist, exhibiting nationally in galleries such as Charleston House - home of the Omega Workshops in Sussex - and the Richard Dare Gallery in London. He also spent many years working in parallel as a Shiatsu practitioner. In 2008 he completed an MA in Art Psychotherapy at Derby University. When he isn't painting, he practises as an Art Psychotherapist.

Between 2004 and 2006 Carl concentrated on producing small expressive gouache paintings. Subsequently, influenced by the study and practice of Art Psychotherapy, he has focused on larger, mixed media images, which weave a complex web of references to high art, popular culture, and domesticity. Carl's canvasses also represent a powerful visual poetry in which fragments of text are juxtaposed with smooth or angular shapes in patterns that are the inevitable expression of thought and emotion.

'For me,' Carl says, 'painting represents a process by which thoughts and feelings become embodied within the image.' Within this imagery intimate representations of ‘the self’ are acknowledged, and explored.

Carl often incorporates a seemingly random collection of doodles, sketches, and cryptic pop references in his paintings, as he finds they help to generate interesting, and unanticipated compositions. The poet, Pierre Reverdy (1918), summarises the inspiration for this process stating ‘The more distant and distinct the relationship between the two realities that are brought together, the more powerful the image’.