CAROLINE WALKER

Lives and works in Dunfermline (UK)

In Caroline Walker’s most recent works, she turns her focus to her immediate surroundings. She explores the boundary between being an observer – that is preserving the “objective” eye of an outsider – and magnifying the experience of a place which has become part of the fabric of her life. They are conceived as a reflection on community and how the anonymous people we encounter become characters in our own stories. Walker describes small movements of daily existence and encapsulates the corners of life which are often overlooked but nonetheless vital, written and erased from history over and over again. They also serve as a kind of self-portrait by recording the artist’s journey through the places she frequents.

Walker has received wide acclaim for her portrayals of women as works of social commentary, although it is her ability to distill viewpoints from familiar settings and her talent as a colorist that first impact viewers of her paintings. The complexities of her subjects’ lives filter through to the surface and coalesce in imagesthat both fulfill the senses and speak to poignant moments of human experience. As a cohesive body of work, Walker’s paintings explore the performance of gender identity, femininity, and question the norms of depicting women and the female form across a range of socio-economic contexts.

Recently, the artist had a solo exhibition The Holiday Park at GRIMM NY, (US) and is included in Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood__, a touring exhibition in the UK on view until June 2025.

Currently the artist has a major solo exhibition Caroline Walker: Mothering at The Hepworth Wakefield (UK) on view from 17 May – 27 October 2025.

Selected solo exhibitions: The Holiday Park, GRIMM New York, NY (US); Nurture, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (UK); Women Observed, K11, Shanghai (CN); Lisa, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (UK); _A Female Gaz_e, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham (UK); Caroline Walker: Birth Reflections, The Fitzrovia Chapel, London (UK); Windows, KM21, Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); Women’s Work, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham (UK); Nearby, GRIMM, New York, NY (US).

Selected collections: Aberdeen Art Gallery (UK); Aishti Foundation (LB); Art Gallery of New South Wales (AU); AkzoNobel Art Foundation (NL); The Fleming Collection (UK); He Art Museum (CN); High Museum of Art, GA (US); ING Collection (NL); Jimenez-Colon Collection (PR); Kistefos Museum (NO); Kolon Group Collection (KR); Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); Museum Voorlinden (NL); National Museum Wales (UK); Pérez Art Museum, FL (US); Saatchi Collection (UK); Shetland Islands Council (UK); Tate (UK); The University of Cambridge (UK); The UK Government Art Collection (UK); and Yale University Art Gallery, CT (US), among others.

Courtesy GRIMM