Beau Carey

Biography

Beau Carey (b. 1980) paints landscapes and moons from memory inspired by Kasina meditation practice which focuses on image and repetition. In Carey’s meditation practice, he conjures the same nameless mountain peak he saw briefly years ago while on residency in Norway. He replicates this visual meditation experience in his paintings by mirroring, inverting, and layering the singular snowcapped peak repeatedly in each composition. The color palette and use of high contrast throughout this body of work either mimics the icy blues of Norway or inverted colors inspired by afterimage. Carey is interested in the fallibility of memory, the passing of time, and the recollection of a familiar image.

Beau Carey paints extensively in remote places such as the Arctic Circle in Norway, Michigan, Maine, and Alaska and incorporates these experiences into his studio work. His work has been featured in the Denver Post, Hyperallergic, Artsy, artnet, Sotheby’s online magazine, alibi.com, and New American Paintings. The artist currently lives and works in Albuquerque, NM.

A year ago I painted a barely remembered moment from a residency I went on over a decade ago. A little peak spied traveling through an arctic straight. Other than that brief glimpse I had no other record, no little painting, sketch or even photograph, just the memory. And memory is so transient and fallible. The more we call something to mind the more it changes. So I painted it and it wasn’t quite right. I started to doubt my recollection; maybe the peak was facing the other direction, was it a little wider, etc. So I painted it again, this time twice in the same painting, making a little valley. Then I painted it again multiple times, multiple versions in the same painting, shifting little details, chasing shadows. And the more I painted it the more elusive this little memory became. The paintings themselves began to take on a momentum. The mountain became solidified, an object of contemplation in contrast to the fading memory. So I’d sit and stare for extended periods of time until the next idea would emerge. Sometimes I’d get an afterimage, or the image would flip and I’d make it a reflection, or I’d add lakes, extra moons, and turn it into a pattern. All the while I wanted to stay close to that fleeting memory. So much of why I paint landscape is rooted in the desire to cling to a rapidly dying and disappearing natural world. To visit this little arctic peak again today would be to find it no longer exists, not in the way I remember it. It will have faded not just in memory but in actuality. 

Painting is always about perception and memory. How and why things look the way they do? Conventions in how we represent space and what that representation says about us. It is an exercise in attention. That’s really all it can do, show where a painter’s attention lies. It can’t persuade, it doesn’t convince, it witnesses. And these are just that, little witnesses to a long ago and forgotten nameless mountain.  – Beau Carey

Education
2010
MFA, Painting and Drawing, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2006
BFA, Painting and Drawing, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Solo Exhibitions
2024
Nameless Mountain, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2023
Anam Cara, Visions West Contemporary, Denver CO

2022
Carey Fisher, Landscapes for a Dying World, Redline Denver, Denver, CO
The Shinning World, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO

2020
Basin and Range, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO

2018
Pilgrimage (two person), Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2017
Swell, Watkins Gallery, Winona St. University, Winona, MN

2016
Rabbit Island, Goodwin Fine Art, Denver, CO
Black Skies, University of New Mexico, Valencia Campus, Tomè, NM

2015 
Rise, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM

2014
Far North, Goodwin Fine Art, Denver, CO

2013
Fata Morgana, Goodwin Fine Art, Denver, CO
Fathom Out (Works by Beau Carey and Cedra Wood), Laura Mesaros Gallery, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

 2012
River School, Andrew J. Macky Gallery, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art,  Boulder, CO
Butcher’s Crossing, Rude Gallery Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Denver, CO

2010
Echo and Narcissus, Bright Rain Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Far Afield, John Sommers Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2009
West Side, Bright Rain Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

 2008
Events on the Ground, Bright Rain Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

Group Exhibitions
2022
Mountain Standard Time, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO, Livingston, MT, Bozeman, MT
Something Old, Sanitary Tortilla Factory, Albuquerque, NM

2021
I Like the West and the West Likes Me, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO
Made in ABQ, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Taking the Scenic Route, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
The Space(s) Between, Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver and Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, CO

2020
Mountain Standard Time, Visions West Contemporary, Denver CO, Livingston MT, Bozeman MT

2019
to the moon and back, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Mountain Standard Time, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO

2018
Open Space: The Finite Frontier, Curtis Arts and Humanity Center, Greenwood Village, CO
Redline 10X: 10th Anniversary Retrospective, Denver, CO

2016
Non Finito, Sanitary Tortilla Factory, Albuquerque, NM

2015
Rabbit Island 2015 Residents, DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, MI

2014
Magnet North, Artists and the Arctic Circle, UBS Gallery1285 Avenue of the America’s, New York, NY
Discovering and Interpreting the West: 19th, 20th and 21st Century
Landscapes, Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Arvada, CO
Direct Connect, Hinterland, Denver, CO

 2013
Fathom Out (Works by Beau Carey and Cedra Wood), Laura Mesaros Gallery, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Earth and Sky (Works by Beau Carey, Tobias Fike, and Zach Reini), Showpen, Denver, CO

2012
Material Engagements, (Curator: Harmony Hammond), Redline, Denver, CO
New Works, Goodwin Fine Art, Denver, CO

2011
AU: Exchange, (Curator: Cortney Lane Stell, Head Curator Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design), Redline, Denver, CO
Place, Emmanuel Gallery, Auraria Campus, Denver, CO
Motels and Motion on the Mother Road: New Mexico, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
Nature and Technology, John Sommers Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Specific Environments, Landscape as Metaphor, (Juror: Leanne Haase Goebel), Lincoln Center Art Gallery, Fort Collins, CO
Icebreaker 2.0, (Juror: Tricia Robson, Assistant Curator Museum of Contemporary Art Denver), Ice Cube Gallery, Denver, CO

2010
Across Ties, Across Time, Redline, Denver, CO
Nature and Technology, John Sommers Gallery, University of NewMexico, Albuquerque, NM
Monday Afternoon, (Jurors: Lucy Lippard, Joel Peter Witkin), Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2008
Take Back, The Land/gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Given Take, The Land/ an art site, Inc., Mountainair, NM
Judicial Notice III, Bernalillo Metropolitan Court House, Albuquerque, NM
Splash, (Juror: Susan Sbarge, Executive Director, and 516 Arts Albuquerque, NM), University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM

2007
At First Sight, Raymond Johnson Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2006
Judicial Notice, Bernalillo Metropolitan Court House, Albuquerque, NM

Awards
2015
Artist in Residence Rabbit Island, Lake Superior, MI

2020
Melinda Frame, For the Record: Albuquerque Artists During COVID-19, CABTV, Artist interview, Spring 

2018
Tess Thackara, These Artists Travel the World to Paint En Plein Air, ARTSY,  April 6
Armory Week Finds: 20 Artworks under $5,000, ARTSY, February 28

2017
Summer in Aspen: Reaching New Heights, Sotheby’s, June 19
Donna Davies, The Lift, Vimeo, August 2 (2.5 minutes)
Art Aspen 2017 at Aspen Ice Garden, Blouin Artinfo, June 16

2015
Maggie Grimason, Presence and Absence in the Landscape, alibi.com, November 26 – December 2
Artist Talk & Poetry: Scott Greene, Beau Carey & Melissa Garcia, KSJE 90.9, December 3

2014
Claude Smith, Far North: Interview with Beau Carey, New American Paintings

2013
Susan Froyd, 100 Colorado Creatives: Beau Carey, westword.com, December 17

Press Release
2024 Nameless Mountain at Richard Levy Gallery
2021 Made in ABQ at Richard Levy Gallery
2021 Taking the Scenic Route at Richard Levy Gallery
2019 to the moon and back at Richard Levy Gallery
2018 Pilgrimage at Richard Levy Gallery
2016 Unstructured Merriment at Richard Levy Gallery