Carol McDermott…I want to be surrounded by landscapes—not just as images, but as atmospheres. For me, landscape painting is less about depicting a place and more about inhabiting a feeling. It’s a way of building a world that I can step into, one that offers space, quiet, and a sense of grounding that is often missing from everyday life.

In my work, landscapes become a form of refuge. They are not bound to a single location, but instead draw from memory, imagination, and emotional resonance. I’m interested in how a horizon line can hold stillness, how color can suggest weather or mood, and how repeated forms—fields, skies, trees—can create a rhythm that feels both familiar and expansive.

Surrounding myself with these paintings is an intentional act. It’s about shaping an environment that reflects a desire for openness and calm, where the boundaries between interior and exterior begin to blur. The landscapes I create and live with are not escapes from reality, but extensions of how I want to experience it—slower, more attentive, and deeply connected to a sense of place, even if that place only exists within the work itself