Travis Carrier is “Adam” in the Adam and Eve painting by the bar at the Mollie Fontaine Lounge.

He painted the picture two years ago.

“I worked on that straight for 40 something hours,” said Carrier, 20. “It was like the beginning to what was to come for me artistically. Adam and Eve was the beginning.”

In addition to the Adam and Eve painting at the restaurant at 679 Adams, Carrier, who attends Rhode Island School of Design, is showing some of his paintings at Automatic Slim’s at 83 South Second.

His mother, Karen Blockman Carrier, owns Automatic Slim’s and Molly Fontaine Lounge, but Carrier isn’t interested in becoming a chef.

He began drawing in kindergarten. “Mostly just shapes and forms.”

Carrier wrote stories and poems, but he didn’t draw again until he was at Ridgeway High School. “I did go out a little bit to Mississippi. My mom’s friend, Robert Malone, is a landscape painter, so I went out with him. I learned a lot about perspective and really moving across the surface without getting stuck in one small area.”

Carrier’s biggest influence at Rhode Island School of Design is artist Alred DeCredico. “He wasn’t my teacher. He was at the school and I’ve seen his work and the way he teaches. I was real interested and decided to get in touch with him.”

He e-mailed DeCredico. “I started going to his house. He’s a large collector of African canes and masks. He’s a painter. He really took me under his wing and just taught me how to really jump into the abyss without being afraid.

“I would bring drawings and paintings. Every week I’d meet with him and he just told me what he thought and I’d leave. It wasn’t very long ever, but he was always right.

“He’s very frank. That’s just what I needed ’cause a lot of people are wishy-washy. He really set it straight.”

Carrier was impressed with DeCredico’s paintings. “He’s done these really physical works. He’s in his later years, probably 80, late 70s. He just made this series that has to do with ancestors. There seemed to be a necessity in his work. It wasn’t just a hobby.”

Many of Carrier’s paintings are expressionistic. Indicating one, he said, “It’s not like a narrative, not a specific story. It doesn’t start at point A and end at point B. It’s all happening at once.”

Describing one of his newer paintings, Carrier said, “I’ve got this figure with her tongue out and she’s got a sword in her hand. It looks Christlike, but the tongue’s out almost like Kali, the Indian goddess of destruction.”

He painted part of one painting with his eyes closed. “My sight was through my hand, not through my eyes.”

Carrier doesn’t just paint expressionistic works. “I still do landscapes and city portraiture and I do figure drawing a lot.”

Carrier has gotten some feedback on the large painting of himself as Adam.

“I’m supposed to be nude. Part of the mouth is missing, but I think people know who I am. I got one who said I wasn’t that built.”

Michael Donahue: 529-2797