I find beauty in texture and layering, by depth and response to both material and experience. I feel I walk a tightrope between opposites, between primitive and contemporary, crude and sophisticated, between what is fuzzy and what is clear, and what is conscious and what is not.

Carol Setterlund

Born in Eureka, California, I lived in Northern California most of my life. The physical influences of the coast and the mountains, the variety and beauty of the landscape, the character of the people in the farm town where I grew up have been my background and continue to inform my work.

My work borders at times on folk or tribal art but more often on a universal connection to both my heritage and the modern contemporary world.

In 2024 I moved from Sonoma County in the Bay Area to Southern Oregon.

Most of my latest work is two-dimensional. Although the physical acts of putting paint on a panel or taking a chain saw to a hunk of wood are very different, I approach each with the same hope of spontaneous motion and, therefore, the discovery of something I didn’t know before.

As for influences  and inspiration,  I admire many artists, but I almost always discover what inspires me through the work itself. What I discover most often is that what drives me is awe of the natural world. One thing I do know about what I’m doing is that it is a celebration. Despite all the miseries in our world, we are here and there are a lot of different kinds of beauty. I celebrate that beauty.

And there is the need to communicate.