Caroline Absher USA, b. 1994
Rather than capturing a fixed moment, she aims to create a transcendental world, reminding us that our inner landscapes are always in motion, shaped by memory and experience.
Caroline Absher (b. 1994, USA) paints with a sense of energy and ecstasy, allowing her compositions to unfold through instinct as much as intention. As her practice moves from figuration toward abstraction, forms emerge and dissolve fluidly, reflecting her sensitivity to emotional states, shifting atmospheres, and human experience. Rather than capturing a fixed moment, she aims to create a transcendental world, reminding us that our inner landscapes are always in motion, shaped by memory and experience. Her canvases feel open and expansive, with colours shifting, figures appearing and disappearing, and gestures that build atmospheric layers of emotion, often reflecting her years of travel and time spent in the outdoors.
Absher’s recent paintings arise from a meditation practice she adopted to find calm amid global unrest and personal uncertainty. Through this practice, she began experiencing flashes of memory, visions, and intense emotional states, which she translated into near-abstract canvases mapping the conflicts of daily life. Drawing on the idea of the silver cord, a mythical link between body and soul, Absher incorporates ghostly, figural outlines that guide and mediate the mind’s turbulence. Her works, roughly the size of a doorway, mark a departure from earlier representational paintings, inviting viewers to engage closely, discover hidden figures, and experience the tension between abstraction and emergent patterns. Ultimately, Absher’s art reflects the mind’s constant search for meaning, translating internal struggle into luminous, dynamic forms that balance beauty and darkness.
Absher lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent solo and group exhibitions include The Silver Cord at The Journal Gallery in Los Angeles, California (2025); Persona at Fredericks & Freiser in New York, New York (2025); Striking (Lighting) Blue at Loyal Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden (2024); City Life at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark (2024); Blue Dream at Shrine in Los Angeles, California (2024); Back to Oz at Fredericks & Freiser in New York, New York (2023); Tennis Elbow 107 at The Journal Gallery in New York, New York (2022), "Women of Now" at Green Family Art Foundation, Texas (2021), The Armory Show (2022, 2023, 2024) Independent New York (2024), among others. Absher has participated in artist residencies such as The Macedonia Institute, New York, further expanding her artistic practice. Absher was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1994. She received a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
