Biography
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Carolyn Guerra received her B. A. degree in Art and English
at Alverno College in 1963, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Carolyn continued her studies
touring European museums and galleries and as a student of the Art Institute of
Chicago where she studied drawing, painting, and printmaking. She taught painting,
sculpture, and printmaking at the high school and university level as well as in her
own studio in Barrington, Illinois. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from
Northwestern University in 1982 where her mentors were Ed Paschke in painting,
Martin Levine in printmaking, Elaine King in support and direction and Leland Rohloff
in mind-expanding creativity.
In 1983 she moved to California with her husband and three children. There, through
a series of unplanned circumstances, she embarked on a very successful real estate
career from 1985 to 1999. The seventeen-year hiatus from the art world enabled
Carolyn to build her studio painting and sculpting full-time as this new century
unveiled.
Bronze sculptures were her first creations in the thrill of discovering a new medium to
add to her repertoire. After being away from painting for so many years, she
wondered how she would paint with so many ideas incubating so long. The facility
with the brush and the excitement at even the scent of oil pigments came back with
joy. Carolyn is a multi-media artist who is continuously discovering and creating.
Currently her preoccupation is concrete sculptures enhanced with her own ceramic
creations or found glass objects. The paradoxical themes of togetherness and
opposition reoccur as in her earlier work, manifesting themselves both in the subject
matter of the works and in her choices of materials, which juxtapose the rough, matte
finish of the concrete and the smooth, glossy surface of glass or glaze.