Carol Reid’s photographs evidence an uninhibited ability to experiment and perceive. Her work occasionally has a sleek beauty reminiscent of Robert Mapplethorpe’s still life photographs but she also ventures into the wrought, textured vocabulary of process-oriented photographers like Sally Mann. Reid’s work is transfixing because it is as introspective as it is extroverted and these two sensibilities are in constant tension with each other. On one hand, Reid’s portrayals of plant life, light, and architecture suggest that looking at the world can lead to beautiful discoveries. On the other hand, Reid suggests that looking itself is but the beginning that leads to examining what lies within—she emphasizes the expressive qualities of seeing by capturing the colors, shapes and patterns that are there only in our mind’s eye.

While Reid’s photographs certainly do not exert any didactic, politicized message, they do something far more intrinsically powerful: they attempt to change the way people interact with the world around them. A self-taught artist, Reid lives and works in New York City.