Samantha DeCarlo

Since the age of 10, I knew I wanted to pursue art, and my parents supported my passion without question. My dad in particular embraced my love for all things art, and invested in every material any creator could want. I painted on an adult-sized easel with long handled bristle brushes and sketched on the best Bristol paper our local art store stocked. At the age of 15 armed with a permission slip and a new set of charcoals, I took nude figure drawing classes outside my public school education, which was already beefed up with art courses including drawing, ceramics, digital illustration, and two years of AP Art. My college education is in illustration, but after graduating from the American Academy of Art in 2012, I switched to fine art painting with zero guidance a year later. So heres the dealI had taken a job with Newell Rubbermaid before my senior year ended - which if you dont know, owns Sharpie and Prismacolor. I worked on those two brands for a year before I followed a friend to a new job at Bottle & Bottega in La Grange, IL. I began as an assistant artist cleaning brushes and helping mix paints for novice guests, while teaching myself the medium at home on used canvas supplied by my boss. After 5 years of teaching and managing that location, I felt I exhausted all I could get from the position and made yet another leap - I took a gallery job on the Mag Mile for artist Peter Lik in 2018. During my time with Pete, I took a 2 year hiatus from art all together. My resurgence into the art world started with a full set of water soluble oil paints and an opportunity for my first solo show from Chicagos own Tony Fitzpatrick - a very successful collage artist. I had two months to create an entire body of work with this new medium for a show February 8th, 2020. Just in time before the world shut down. This opportunity jump-started my painting career. Fast forward 2 years of self discovery (and many unforeseen challenges), and here I am today.