Studio

 

 

Carolina Cleere, a native Floridian, first picked up a camera at 25 while studying Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota. Since then, her life has been devoted to exploring narrative expression through photography and art.

Her professional career has taken her to newspapers and wire services in Seattle, New York and Tampa where she became an editorial illustrator, a journey that recently led her back to a full-time pursuit in fine arts.

She has been recognized nationally and internationally for both her art and photojournalism. Cleere won the Mayor’s award at the prestigious Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in 2009, Best of Show at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art’s ARTE 2007 juried exhibition and Best of Show at Island Fest Fine Art Show in 2008. Other honors include five awards for Pictures of the Year from the National Press Photographer's Association. Also, Cleere’s work has also been featured in Photo District News magazine and Foto8.

In her studio, Cleere personally created a unique process of blending images through photography and painting. She assembles her creations from a vast collection of vintage doll heads, weathered animal bones, frozen birds and other electica collected on her daily travels.

Today she is a full-time artist living in a century-old cigar factory loft, surrounded by rustic props and colorful paints which she uses to blur the line between work, art and life.