Bio

Carlos Womack (American, b. 1994) lives and works in London, UK. Womack holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (United States of America, 2016) and an MA in the Conservation of Books and Library Materials from West Dean College (United Kingdom, 2022). Womack has exhibited in the United States and the United Kingdom, most notably at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2024 and 2025.

Statement

Carlos Womack makes oil paintings inspired by Baroque figurative painting, romanticism, observational drawing, and found imagery on the internet. He brings these different sources together to create colourful multi-figure compositions that unfold through shifting, loosely connected narratives. 

In his most recent series, Womack is directly inspired by Richard Artschwager’s series of drawings titled ‘Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug.’ Artschwager limits himself to these 6 objects and attempts to make as many compositions as he can. Using this framework, Womack selects elements personal to him. Each work contains an art historical reference, multiple perspectives, multiple figures, a sky, a ground, architecture and nature. While these generalised subjects describe most representational figure paintings throughout history, Womack is less interested in illustrating a defined narrative than Jacob Jordaens or Theodore Gericault, to name two. 

Instead, Womack wants to instill the feeling of ambiguity and wanderlust that is produced when encountering a monumental narrative painting as a child. Figures are interacting in a context yet the story is elusive. This is born of a lack of knowledge of the Western canon as well as the inability to understand the Curator’s wall text. Despite these common shortcomings, a tangible aesthetic experience occurs; it is this universal experience Womack attempts to recreate with each one of his compositions. 

Womack works on multiple paintings on canvas and paper simultaneously. Working this way allows each painting to develop as a unified body of work rather than attempts in every direction.