Carridine Poran

Carridine Poran is an artist, storyteller and teacher.

In his career as an artist, Kerry has been a galleried Fine Arts Painter and Sculptor, an illustrator of literary fiction as well as an actor and voice performer, a playwright, novelist and essayist. Overall, his career has been characterized by the effort to find new, more socially relevant roles for the artist.

First and foremost through his work he seeks to demonstrate the connection between the Imagination's Visionary Landscape and the Socially Committed Life. It was his early experience as an Adult Literacy Instructor and his exposure to the Liberatory Pedagogy developed by Paolo Freire which demonstrated this connection to him.

Running seminars and workshops and mentoring LGBTQ youth was an equally transformative experience which was cemented by his experience of the death of his own mentor. The art Kerry did over a period of seven years as a memorial, The Mentor's Grove, finally brought together all of the elements of his creative life.

In response to suddenly being capable of a vision of that whole, he founded Carridine Poran Creative Services which, in addition to traditional art instruction, offers programs in which artists work with community organizations to produce large scale public art. Lead artists instruct community volunteers in the skills necessary to design and carry out the artwork. Projects have included murals, graphic novels, and oral history archives. These projects help communities visualize local narratives and encourage mentoring relationships.