Carolyn Day lives in Portland, Maine, where she studies painting at the Maine College of Art & Design. She is looking forward to receiving her BFA in Painting in the spring of 2026. It was her upbringing in Watkinsville, Georgia, climbing trees and tying clover chains, that sparked the fascination with nature that now informs her painting practice. Her paintings, often utilizing found furniture objects as surface, explore memories of precious, personal spaces within nature and the joy and love that these places hold. When she is not painting, she is often off adventuring somewhere in the world: hiking through a forest, collecting strange objects off the side of the road, or paddling down a river in a kayak. She also enjoys the comforts of her home and can be found lazing around with her darling cat, Posie, or cooking a meal for her lovely friends.
Artist Statement
A home is an assemblage made up of a lifetime of accumulated fragments. Pieces of furniture act as evidence of places that I have never been and people that I will never meet. My paintings exist on these objects, discarded by their previous owners. As these objects become paintings, their use is changed and they begin to operate as portals into my own memories and sensations of joy and love. I am guided by the form of the objects themselves; folding leaves and hinged compartments become opportunities to tuck images away, just as objects and secrets once were tucked into the same places. Through this process, images of nature are infused with the previous life of the objects and their histories of containment, use, separation, and decoration.
I immerse myself in landscape and the natural world. The surfaces of my furniture objects record the things that I witness: skies and forests reflected onto and distorted by the surface of water, sunlight that seeps through tree canopies, electric shadows on white snow and grass that glows golden against deepening blue skies. All of this, to me, is the glittering, tender magic that certain spaces and moments in time contain. When this natural imagery is paired with timeworn, once-loved objects that exist indoors, the environments become related to personal space and therefore precious. The same becomes true about the interior spaces of the furniture objects themselves; a landscape that is hidden inside of a drawer or behind a cabinet door becomes a secret to hide or something to treasure and protect. When a surface moves, folds, or shifts, the painting and the space within it changes as well, allowing for these environments of memory and emotion to converge and reflect onto each other.
CV
Education
2022-2026 Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) Bachelor of
Fine Arts in Painting (forthcoming)
Group Exhibitions
2026 May Thesis Show, MECA&D, Portland, ME
April SEAD Minor Show, 49 Oak, Portland, ME
2025 November Veil, 82 Parris, Portland, ME
October-November BFA Show, MECA&D, Portland, ME
March-April Merit Show, MECA&D, Portland, ME
2024 October-November BFA Show, MECA&D, Portland, ME
CoLab, 49 Oak, Portland, ME
Awards
2022-2026 MECA&D Presidential Scholarship; Portland, ME
MECA&D Dean’s List; Portland, ME
2022 Gold Key Award, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards;
Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, GA
2021 Georgia Governor’s Honors Program Finalist and
Attendee; Berry College, Rome, GA
Employment
2025 June/July MECA&D Continuing Studies TA; Portland, ME
Oil Painting, Color Theory + Exploration
2023 May-July SPARK, Instructor; Watkinsville, GA
Watercolor, acrylic, and drawing workshops
2023 & 2024 Georgetown Frames, framer; Athens, GA
Skills
Painting — oil, watercolor, gouache, acrylic
Woodshop skills — miter, table, band, and jig saws, drill, hand tools, sanding
Metalsmithing — soldering, riveting, hand sawing, stone setting, enameling
Ceramics — wheel throwing, handbuilding
Printmaking — intaglio, woodblock
Photography & Photoshop — basic camera operation & editing skills