Elizabeth Porritt Carrington was born in 1978 and grew up in rural Ireland. She lived and worked both in Ireland and Southern France before settling into the River Arts District in Asheville, NC in 2013. Carrington’s “eco-contemplative” work is an invitation to re-establish ourselves within the community of the natural world and our relationship with the cycle of life. Through an interplay of nature, mythology, ecology and a deep interest in the human story, she expresses her experience and curiosity in an ongoing creative conversation.
Grief, a close companion in Carrington’s practice, has been an unexpected wellspring of inspiration. Driven by a series of losses into the natural world for solace, Carrington now immerses herself in expressing the journeys we make back and forth between love and grief and their inextricable link, ultimately emerging from the support system of nature and its passing seasons with a sense of gladness to be alive. Primarily an oil painter, Carrington works with earth paints, pigments, acrylics, watercolor as well as new media. The bio region of Southern Appalachia is a constant presence in her work, as are her travels across the Atlantic each year to paint the wild woodlands, coastlines, streams, bogs and hills of Ireland.
Carrington graduated from the Atlantic Technological University in 2002. She went on to receive awards both for research, travel and studio practice from the Galway Arts Office, Irish Arts Council and the Bank of Ireland. Carrington has exhibited internationally, notably Centre de Culture Irlandaise, Paris, The Mermaid Arts Centre and Galway Arts Center (Ireland), the US Embassy in Kazakstan and the Tulca International Festival of Visual Arts. Her most recent exhibitions were in Tyger Tyger in Asheville and Rada Outpost in Atlanta.
Carrington’s work is in private and public collections internationally including Mission Hospital’s north tower collection in Asheville, and the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris. Through grants and funding, Carrington has worked extensively in community arts projects, as well as tutoring in educational institutions from elementary to college level over the past twenty years.
I am an eco-contemplative painter which is a term I landed upon after a long-held creative conversation with the natural world. My paintings are a response to that interaction and its inspirational forces. My paintings are an expansion of what I observe and are both an offering and invitation to the viewer to feel a sense of awe with me, and the often surprising and encouraging connections we can make between our human life experience and that of the Earth.
As my practice has progressed through the years it has become clear to me that it is in the threshold moments, a dawn or gloaming evening dropping into the night, a seasonal shift or end, that holds potent visual information encased in beauty about life’s transformations. A vital nourishment for the human experience of belonging and the understanding and processing of the cycles of life, I strive to paint these essential and pivotal moments. Between light and dark, I return to the subjects of the circle, the portals of the forest, field, and stream, and to the Irish holy wells of my homeland, to aid in my expression.
Our industrial and post-industrial pursuits have drawn a tangent away from the time, space, and practices to interact daily with Nature’s beauty and the presence it invokes. We have been a long time coming back round to see that it is missing. It may be a long time yet before we carry the true heft of what is lost, being lost, and will be lost. Concurrently we are discovering an abundance of new information about how we are kindred to all systems of life, and the tools to rekindle and build new systems of natural connection are emerging and available.
Art, for me, is a relationship between the subject the artist, and the viewer. I strive to be a mediator, I paint to reconnect and ameliorate, passing visually painted messages of Nature, of what was, what already is, and what is possible.
Education
2002 B.F.A. Atlantic Technical University Galway, Ireland
1996 Craft and Design Certificate, Grennan Mill Craft School, Thomastown, Ireland
Solo Exhibitions
2023-24 Materia, Artplay, Asheville, NC
2005 Lyshippe, TULCA Festival Galway, Ireland
2003 Performance Sur La Temps, Centre de Culture Irlandaise, Paris, France
Selected Exhibitions
2025 Asheville Strong, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
2025 Standing Strong, Bender Gallery, Asheville, NC
2024-25 Riverview Gate Installation, Asheville, NC
2024-25 Love from Afar, Atlanta Ponce City Market, Atlanta, GA
2024 Raising Hope and Spirits, Artplay, Asheville, NC
2024 LUA, Killaloe, Ireland
2017 Remembering, FW Gallery, Asheville, NC
2016 Obair na Man, Crawford Gallery, Asheville, NC
Artist Residencies
2019-20 Sola School, Asheville, NC
2004-5 Transcending the Territory, Athenry, Ireland
Awards
2017 Hemera Foundation Fellowship
2013 Artist’s Assistance Grant, Clare Arts Council Ireland
2005 Transcending the Territory, Grant from the Arts Council of Ireland
2002 Hewlett Packard Award, Student of the Year, Ireland