Paintings and Fine Art

Carrie Baxter lives and works in Northern Illinois. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio painting and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Northern Illinois University (NIU). Carrie’s artwork has been exhibited throughout the Midwest in juried and group exhibitions including the Monroe Arts Center (Monroe, WI), Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA), Freeport Art Museum (Freeport, IL), Quad City Arts Gallery (Rock Island, IL), Woodlawn Arts Academy (Sterling, IL), Highland Park Art Center (Highland Park, IL), Old Court House Art Center (Woodstock, IL), ACS Gallery (Chicago, IL), and the 33 Contemporary Gallery (Chicago, IL). In addition to her art career, Carrie is currently the Collections and Exhibitions Manager at the Freeport Art Museum where she curates exhibitions featuring regional and national artists.
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​Carrie’s artwork references elements of nature by focusing on the rare, overlooked, and often disregarded. She also incorporates texture into her artwork in order to create a psychological struggle within the viewer. Although traditionally it has become socially unacceptable to touch artworks on display, her textured paintings provoke an overwhelming desire for the viewer to reach out and touch the work’s surface in order to experience what it feels like. This desire places the viewer at an impasse where they have to decide whether or not to control their tactile impulses. This curiosity provides the audience an additional form of experiencing the work.  ​