Tracy Villa Carrera is a figurative painter known for her behind-the-scenes depictions of restaurant kitchens and staff. For her latest work, she spent an evening at Pranzo Italian Grill in Santa Fe painting six oils capturing the energy of the restaurant. The paintings show scenes like the intense focus of head chef Jeff Copeland and a harried waitress catching her breath. Carrera's paintings are not strictly documentary but draw on memory and association to compose each scene. Her lusty slice-of-life paintings have proven popular with gallery goers. The paintings will be on display paired with a Pranzo food tasting as part of an art and food tour fundraising event in Santa Fe.

1. Localflavor Magazine
A Feast for the Palate/Palette by Alan Gintzler
A Feast for the Palate/Palette
Figurative painter Tracy Villa Carrera is an eavesdropper. Her emphatic, riveting
canvasses of people going about their work-a-day lives are snippets of joy, toil, and the
quiet dignity of survival. Noted for her behind-the-scenes snapshots of restaurant kitchens
and staff, Carerra is a storyteller in oils and brush. If a restaurant dishwasher could paint
(and Carrera has been one), these are the images we’d see.
On a recent visit to Santa Fe, the California-based artist spent a spirited evening snapping
frame upon frame of scenes at Pranzo Italian Grill. The resultant six oils, linen on board,
capture the flurry and frenetic energy of an all-stops-open food venue, from hostess and
manager to wait-staff, diners, and cooks. These six scenarios in paint showing at Blaire
Carnahan Fine Art comprise the centerpiece of the gallery’s contribution to the sixth
annual Edible Art Tour sponsored by ARTfeast, a non-profit project of the Santa Fe
Gallery Association.
In “Maestro,” a flowing study of Pranzo head chef Jeff Copeland, Carrera’s sweeping
strokes arrest the high-pitched speed and command of the culinary master. Says Carrera,
“The chef had a certain poise, a very serious stare and internal harmony as he worked. It
seemed as if he were cooking up a symphony with his unselfconscious movements over
the stove.”
To express Copeland’s quiet intensity and focus, Carrera painted her subject with his
back to the viewer, utterly engaged in his own activity. This frequent obscuring of faces
is, in part, a device bringing attention to the movement and action of her subjects, and
also revealing of the artist’s mindset. “Being a twin,” says Carrera, “my universe is
always me and someone else. I don’t think in terms of singularity of individuals, but who
we are collectively. I describe people by what they’re doing.” The face, perhaps, could be
any face, or the universal face, but this isn’t always the case.
In “Pranzo Waitress,” a portrait, Carrera captures a harried, pug-nosed beauty, wisps of
hair out of place and plastered on her forehead. We can see the waitress has just caught
her breath and is settling in with a strained smile to take orders. Thick painterly strokes in
night-time oranges, offset by black and white, frame a moment and mood we can
identify.
We meet this classic character again, or perhaps her twin sister, in “Pranzo,” taking the
orders of two women diners. A single shock of hair falls free of its bun against a
backdrop of golden hues and darkened mid-ground. In conversation with the artist, we
learn that the diner seated to the right with black hair punctuated by a huge red flower is a

2. carry-over from Carrera’s recent viewing of the film Frida, based on the life of Mexican
artist Frida Kahlo. Carrera, for all the reality-base in her work, is not, after all, a
documentarian. The flurry of photographs she takes, studies, and crops in the process of
her art do not result in documentary painting. Each painting and scene she renders makes
its own demands on memory, association, and composition.
Such is the case in “Specials This Evening,” a floor scene in yellow, ocher, and
contrasting shadow. The waiter reading specials from his pad was given a mustache by
the artist to bring out a “swarthy, sensual, Sicilian look,” reflecting the mood of the
evening. Points of twinkling light flecking thick red in the upper left-center represent
“particles of restaurant atmosphere,” according to the artist, who found her Pranzo
experience “exhilarating, stimulating, and celebratory. I was energized,” she says, “and
breathless. I’m drawn to the shady, edgy, you might say, naughty and sweaty, perfumed
nightlife.”
Her lusty, slice-of-life paintings do find resonance among gallery-goers. Gallery owner
Carnahan sold 105 of Carrera’s cameos and vignettes in the past 18-month period. Her
painting, “Pranzo,” sold on the very day it arrived at the gallery, unframed, and freshly
unpacked.
As the Edible Art Tour is a pairing of galleries and restaurants, a two-headed combo of
art and food, chef Copeland’s culinary selections, served at the Carnahan gallery, will be
a representational Pranzo food-fest. On the menu are steamed black mussels with garlic
butter and wine; goat cheese puffs with sun-dried tomato tapenade, roasted garlic, and
capers; and prosciutto with capponatta.
A fundraiser benefiting arts in Santa Fe’s public schools, the Edible Art Tour will feature
some 25 pairings of galleries and food venues, each offering a coordinated visual art and
culinary theme. A feast for the eyes and palate-cum-palette is assured.
####
2