Carrick Art

A painter and musician, Carrick Moore Gerety was born in Evanston, Illinois, and drew his first portrait of a knight with a sword at age two. He spent his childhood moving around the midwest and northeast with his academic parents and three brothers, before graduating from Harvard University where he studied painting and animation. In 1999, he moved to Los Angeles with his first indie rock band, the Push Kings, and started the band Everybody Else when they broke up. In L.A. Carrick continued painting in the traditional sense, but also found the opportunity to experiment with the mass produced art forms associated with bands and graffiti. The juxtaposition of music and art--from the Pop Art Movement of New York in the 60's to the contemporary Graphic and Graffiti Art scene inCalifornia-- are great sources of inspiration to Carrick, butmore classical influences also appear in his paintings. In his portrait series with charcoal and gouache on wood, an unlikely collaboration seems to be taking place between turn-of-the-century German Expressionists and contemporary street artists. You may even see the vestigial influence of the great portaitist John Singer Sargent. Sargent is a relative of Carrick's through his maternal great-grandmother, Margaret Sargent, who was also a painter and disciple of the Ashcan School. Like both of his ancestors, Carrick paints mostly the people he knows and likes--brothers, friends, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends. As a result, one senses the personalities of both subject and artist in his portraits, and there is a distinct spirit of irreverence and fun evident in their interaction.