SCOTTSDALE, AZ.- Exquisitely attuned to the graphic signals of the universe, painter Carrie Marill translates the ephemera of the visual world into intriguing and sophisticated works. The artist’s unflinching aesthetic curiosity threads through series inspired by such disparate influences as 18th century European landscapes and Asian textile design. Hi n Lo, Marill’s latest body of work, addresses a question that struck her after a trip to New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and, subsequently, the American Folk Art Museum: “Why is an Op Art piece valued as ‘high’ art and an intricate quilt considered ‘low’?”

"The theme centers around this idea of blending the two worlds. What if Joseph Albers was a quilter or Gee's Bend quilts turned into Abstract Expressionist paintings?" - Carrie Marill

Comprised of works that explore the significant commonalities between these traditions, the works of Hi n Lo revel in the uses of pattern--the elemental pleasure of colors and shapes arranged on a field. A reccurent theme of both the high art influences and the works of American quilters, pattern is also something that Marill is drawn to. The artist remarks that “pattern is an inherent part of my artistic practice, it triggers the creation of new work.”

While pattern may seem an impersonal concept, Marill, in her typically idiosyncratic way, treats tessellated pattern instead as an opportunity to reveal vulnerability, as in Red and White Mantra, a mesmerizing checkerboard vortex embraced by a circular scrim of interior thoughts and resolutions.