Carol John’s Untitled (2008).Courtesy of Ivy Brown Gallery
Artist Carol John’s Paintings Are Explosive
Carol John’s paintings are zesty and merry, with polka dots, blobs, and all manner of zap and swirl. Somehow, though, they’d seem to fit as perfectly on the walls of Abigail Breslin’s all-American-girl bedroom in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl as in Amy Poehler’s white-trash suitcases as she flees her good-for-nothin’ man in Baby Mama. In other words, Carol John seems to have distilled all the grand contradictions that give lipstick feminism its pow. John’s paintings are at Ivy Brown Gallery through August 13. —Emma Pearse