For oil painter Elissa Carroll, a new installation at Coveleigh Club in Rye allowed her to do what she loves most — create large-scale oil paintings of nature and light.
The three 65-inch by 65-inch canvases line a white wall in Coveleigh’s newly renovated ballroom, opposite the windows facing the Long Island Sound.
The paintings, entitled “Swimmers Lane at Sunrise,” “Late Afternoon Sail on the Sound,” and “Buoys Floating at Sunset,” capture the natural beauty of Rye and the way light shifts and changes on the water.
In this triptych, Carroll’s impressionistic and abstract scenes are defined by color, light, and movement rather than realistic details. The paintings blend pastel hues of blues and pinks to capture the light through clouds and water, showcasing the Long Island Sound at varying times of day. Docks, sailboats, and other details give a sense of location along Rye’s shoreline.
For Carroll, 56, who has spent decades honing her skills as a painter and muralist and working with clients in both commercial spaces and private homes, these large canvases also signify her personal commitment to making art a priority as her three sons begin to leave the nest.
Carroll grew up on Boston’s North Shore, and was in kindergarten when her mother noticed that she spent most of her free time drawing. She started taking art classes at a local art center, and continued every Saturday through high school.
She went to the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Mass., and later worked for an architecture and management firm, helping with interior design in restaurants, apartment buildings, and other commercial spaces.
She learned to listen to clients, transforming their ideas and needs into artistic renderings. She also took on private commissions.
Photo Alison Rodilosso
Carroll balanced her client work with her own creative work, and in her practice, nature, light, and movement became her paintings’ focus. Over the years, Carroll has taught classes at the Rye Arts Center and other art schools, and during Covid, she taught art outside. She has worked on the corporate side of the art world, and has collaborated with many designers on commissioned works.
“My inspiration has always been color and light, and my work extends from nature, often seascapes and landscapes,” Carroll said. “My paintings have a modern feel with luminosity and movement, and I try to capture the way light changes from one second to the next.”
The Coveleigh paintings gave her an opportunity to paint what she loves, illuminated seascapes, on a large scale.
To begin her process, Carroll often goes for walks in the Marshlands and other local places, carrying her camera and paints, often painting on location and soaking in the changing light as she works. She takes photographs and returns at different times of day, documenting the scenes to use as studies when she continues the work in her home studio.
While she trained in realism as a young artist, Carroll enjoys the movement and energy of abstracted landscapes. She looks to the Impressionists for their use of light, noting Renoir, Degas, Manet, and Cassatt as inspiration. Willem De Kooning is her favorite Abstract Expressionist for his ability to capture motion in his art.
Carroll’s works at Coveleigh incorporate elements of those artists along with her keen eye for detail and a strong sense of place.
For Carroll, creating paintings of this scale and installing them against the backdrop of the Long Island Sound is an honor. Coveleigh had commissioned one of her pieces years earlier, a painting of lilies that was installed in the parlor.
Photo Alison Rodilosso
Amy Lawrence, a local interior designer who managed the renovation of the ballroom and was a Coveleigh board member of seven years, recognized a need to add a statement piece to the ballroom. She immediately thought of Carroll.
“Elissa was so excited and easy to work with,” Lawrence said. “She understood the process of getting board approval, and focused on creating something that complemented the space and that people would enjoy. She started with sketches and was open to feedback along the way. We appreciated her thorough attention to detail from the project’s inception through to the installation.”
Having completed this project, Carroll is setting new career goals. She is adjusting to the reality that social media is here to stay and plans to use it to increase her outreach to galleries and other artists. The Rye community’s support has helped shape her career in recent years, she said, from local interior designers who champion her artwork to connecting with the Greenhaven Artists, a group of women artists who support one another.
That little girl who could not stop painting maintained her passion through adulthood, and sees a new chapter beginning, one in which art and creativity take center stage.