"Basking Ridge neighborhood", by Carolyn Speranza

Unnamed painting by Carolyn Speranza is 16" x 20", oil on artist board, indistinctly signed lower right. It has the artist's complete name, 1970s address in Basking Ridge, NJ and telephone number verso. The artist never titled it, so I did.

I have had this painting for many years and have not had a place to display it but can now easily find space at New House. I really love this painting, the dark surrealism of it. It is quite physically dark, as well, so I struggled to capture that.

I tracked the artist down years ago and we had a few email exchanges. She painted this when she was a teenager, circa 1970s! I think it is quite well done. At least I love it. Her later work moved in other directions and while not exactly dismissive of this work, I think she was not very enthusiastic about it when we communicated.

From my web site, an old biography I wrote at the time of my conversation with the artist:

"Carolyn Speranza is a Pittsburgh media artist. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA and from Ohio State University with an MFA. She painted this work in the late 1970s while still in her teens. Her profile is on Google. I'll get a better image of this painting when time permits. This painting was never titled, according to the artist. The artist's name and address were recorded in crayon or marker verso, which made it possible to identify this artist.

Her current resume is most impressive:

https://speranza.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cpsperanza_bio_2024_photo.pdf