About

JB Carrera’s introspective work is connecting complex harmony of colors, syncopated rhythms of line and texture with a strong emphasis on intuitive improvization. Inspired by her travels and growing up in Kansas City, a city rich in multicultural heritage, vibrant art scene, and Jazz & Blues music, which is instantaneously expressed through her mark making. Her subjects vary between spiritual and/or current social observations.

Art is my life therapy.

I document the beauty and weirdness I find throughout my life. A Sunrise, a mood, an interesting pattern on the concrete, irritating internet memes, and other small moments that could be amusing. Much of my work reflects my journey, emotions etched on the canvas. I try to live by my life’s motto: Make your life a work of Art.

As a traveller, I collect inspiration from adventures and add it to my work - Lines, Textures, shadows, and of course, color. Some paintings are simple, some are hectic and energetic. Others tell stories, with symbolism and/or sarcasm, some are discovery and experiments. Connection with color is deep in my heart. I'm in love with progress through process.

Right now, I'm writing and visualizing the whole life process a woman goes through, from puberty all the way to menopause — everything from the big, obvious changes to the tiny, almost infinite ones that shape us: spiritually, culturally, socially, publicly, privately, internally, all of it. I've been exploring this by listening, really trying to understand through the stories of women I meet, and I want to capture their strength in it. What'll come out of this are visual pieces that speak to what womanhood really means — the births, the deaths, and how we just keep adapting through it all.

And since I'm turning 50 at the end of August this year, I've also been putting together an outline of my own life — documenting the moments where a wound left its mark on me. Sometimes that's an actual death, and sometimes it's not — it's more like a drastic shift where I had to let a moment end, grieve it, accept it, and move forward. I'm hoping to build these works out across my whole 50th year.