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Portrait by Susanna Tanner • 2008 |
Carvin Rinehart grew up in the Nettle Creek Valley, near Hagerstown,
Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University East and attended Herron
School of Art in Indianapolis, where he majored in Visual Communication
and minored in photography and art history. After hearing other artists
expressing their need for a local support group that focuses on the
business side of art, he helped found the Whitewater Valley Artists
Consortium in 2003. In addition to several solo shows, he has won
awards at many juried competitions. Artist’s statement I enjoy dividing my time between commercial design, where I work directly with clients, and my private work in painting and photography, which is created from personal experiences and passions. These three different areas reinforce each other, creating a continuous stream of new ideas and inspiration in all my work. I draw from, and make reference to, diverse cultures, styles and traditions. My paintings are inspired from many sources, such as folk painting, early 20th century Modernists, textiles from all over the world, or early Flemish painting. For example, my painting Isenheim Quilt is a commentary on the 16th century Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, yet is filtered further through American quilts and the playfulness of Paul Klee paintings. In my commercial designs, I love using diverse styles. I enjoy the process of working with a client on any commercial project, but my favorite work is definitely the theatre poster. Each theatrical production is a fresh, exciting adventure and I’ve designed dozens of performing arts posters over the years. Because every show is unique, each poster is stylistically completely different from the others. I believe posters can be important works of art in and of themselves, so my goal is to create a timeless image that can still be enjoyed years after the run of the show. My photography is far from spontaneous. The process for creating each image is planned as carefully as a live stage production, with nearly all my photographs making references to specific works of art. Classical mythology is the dominant subject matter in most of my photographs, but inspiration can also come religious legends or even western mysticism. In all my work, regardless of medium, I invite the viewer to “decode” the many cultural layers and historical references in each piece.
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