With brush in hand, painting for Carlon holds many boundless routes. She’ll wander the surface of her paintings as if she were walking the streets alone, getting lost in alcoves and dead-ends and finding her way out. The exhibition’s oxymoronic title, ‘Strange Comfort’, captures her attraction to these moments alone, while nodding to the foreboding sensations they evoke. In ‘Dining Room’, she paints a deserted restaurant with the lights left on and only five visible chairs; the tables have the illusion of oversized playing cards, the red napkins like diamonds from the same deck. As viewers, we piece together her scenes like a game, each painting another clue, or piece of evidence to her unfolding story. It’s the same way some of her main inspirations work – Lois Dodd, Dike Blair or Winifred Nicholson – painting as if logging a diary, tracing what’s graspable from the world and memorialising them in detail and colour. - Ted Targett
