Louis Carr — Intimate Spaces and Youthful Portraits

Louis Carr is an artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina, who is well-known for his intimate and delicately rendered portrait and landscape paintings.

- By Krystle Stricklin

Louis Carr is an artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina, who is well-known for his intimate and delicately rendered portrait and landscape paintings. "At a very early age I wanted to become an artist," Carr explains.

Portrait of Divya, oil, 12 x 9" (30 x 22 cm)

"My parents were significant appreciators of the arts, and because I was homeschooled, I had the capacity to practice." Carr's parents were close family friends with noted portrait painter Marshall Bouldin, who happened to live in their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Marshall, and his son, Jason Boudin, became role models for a young Carr and inspired him to pursue a career in portrait painting. At the early age of 13, Carr started taking portrait commissions in charcoal. He continued to work on portraits through high school and into college, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science at the University of Mississippi. "I continued commissions for the next four years until inspired to further my education at Grand Central Atelier in New York", Carr recalls. After his time in New York, Carr moved to Raleigh along with artists Michael Klein and Joshua LaRock to found East Oaks Studio, a virtual-based live atelier that is focused on building a community of artists and professionals who believe in the power of beauty. In just five short years, Carr and the East Oaks Studio team have built an incredible virtual library that offers invaluable access to renowned master artists from anywhere in the world.

Morning Reverie, oil, 44 x 30" (111 x 76 cm)