Arizona artist spotlight: Carla Keaton
Published: 06/23/2025
Meet Phoenix-based artist Carla Keaton featured in GPEC’s Perspectives of Greater Phoenix Exhibit
For more than 25 years, Carla Keaton has quietly studied the people of Greater Phoenix, capturing life’s small, powerful moments through her paintings. Her work often centers on individuals in motion: waiting at bus stops, crossing intersections, or pausing on busy sidewalks.
“I ask myself, ‘What is her story? Where is he going?’” she says. That curiosity is the heartbeat of her art.
This theme is especially vivid in A Long Day’s End, Keaton’s piece featured in the Greater Phoenix Economic Council’s hybrid art exhibit, Perspectives of Greater Phoenix. The oil painting illustrates a young woman exiting the light rail in downtown Phoenix. “I imagined she had just finished a long day at work, stepping into the evening with quiet determination,” Keaton says. It’s a scene that captures the energy and resilience of daily life in the city and reflects the focus that runs throughout her work.
A Long Day’s End
For a spark of creativity, Keaton says she would transport herself to “any busy street corner” in Greater Phoenix. Her inspiration comes from the region’s pulse; its layered, lived-in energy. It’s in the people, in their movement and in the endless stories waiting to be told through a brushstroke.
Beyond the canvas, Keaton views arts and culture as essential to a thriving community. She recalls a quote that shaped her thinking: A physician tells an artist he saves lives, to which the artist replies, “I make life worth living.” For Keaton, that exchange sums up the role art plays in building community.
Her work is deeply rooted in community, and she finds strength in the network of local creatives. “Other artists are my greatest resource,” she says. “We speak the same language, have similar challenges and share resources that help each other grow.”
This spirit of collaboration is reflected in how she describes the Greater Phoenix art scene: innovative, supportive and inspiring.
Keaton’s advice for aspiring artists is candid: “You only have to be good enough to get your point across.” That mindset, rooted in honesty and expression, comes through in her work.
She continues to be inspired by local talents like Don Robbins and Debra Jones, two artists she admires for their creativity and presence in the community. Through her own lens, Carla Keaton invites viewers to see the extraordinary in the everyday and reminds us that Greater Phoenix’s story is told not only in its skyline, but in the lives moving through it.