My Women in Water series comes from a personal place: I swim 7 days a week, and while I don’t consider them self- portraits, I am the swimmer in the paintings. Nor do I consider myself an athlete; this is a spiritual practice that is integral to my art work.As reviewer Marcia Morris of the Honolulu Advertiser wrote, “The body floats and the mind drifts.”My swimmers patrol the water’s edge and the ocean’s floor, finding stuff to recycle as art. The swimmers are my navigation tool: they have lead me to explore fishing nets and knots, abstract fish patterns,  surfers and stand up paddlers... flotsam and jetsam and their ecological impact. Presently I’m fixated on just water itself, always present yet moving and changing, first it’s a mirror and then a window.I’m a wet reporter, bringing back news from the ocean, both timeless and timely.What is unique about my art and my swimmers in particular is their strong sense of self and place.

- Carol Bennett

Carol Bennett is a Hawaii based painter and glass artist. Her works are in the permanent collections of Honolulu Academy of the Arts and The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.