‘Calling’ lithograph by Caroline Walker
121 High Street
Portsmouth, PO1 2HW
info@jackhousegallery.co.uk
Fine Art Gallery
A new suite of Lithographs by Caroline Walker
This suite of lithographs is only her second foray into lithography and follows on from the ‘Initiations’ series. More ambitious and larger in scale Caroline Walker brings her fresh painterly approach to the print process. We will also be showing the ‘Initiations’ portfolio.
‘The lithographs in Sunset take their title and subject from a series of paintings which were exhibited in Los Angeles in early 2018. Although not directly related to any of the paintings, these prints follow the same logic, showing scenes from a day in the life of a semi-fictional character at her home in the Hollywood Hills. The model was a former Miss America contestant (Miss Colorado 1977) who, in part was the inspiration for developing the character that I imagined would live in this house and how she would spend her time there. There’s a strong sense of voyeurism across the four scenes; of watching and being watched. The vantage point we see her from in Calling is reversed in Vigil, while the mirrored boudoir of Brushwork sees the protagonist in triplicate, intensifying this scene of self-management and observation. In these three prints she is seen alone, the object of our gaze, but in Bathed she looks back inside the house, perhaps to where we are situated, as though acknowledging the viewer’s gaze or perhaps another figure. The format of all the prints in this series is the same, intended to create an almost filmic sense of moving between different scenes but with an unclear narrative. Through this second series of lithographs I had a chance to develop my language with the medium, further utilising the interesting effects of layering plates to try and create scenes which reflect the rich colour of this Californian setting.’ Caroline Walker 2018
INITIATIONS Portfolio 2014
‘I gave my first series of lithographs the title Initiations to reflect that working with the medium of lithography was a new venture for me. In terms of mark-making, lithography is the printmaking process closest to painting, but it still presented a completely different way of building an image. I had to consider how, through overlaying transparent layers of colour, I could use a relatively limited palette to build complex scenes. The prints in the set were diverse in subject matter, reflecting a shift in subject in my painting practice at that time, from staged luxury towards an interest in artificiality and illusion. Adornment and Local Custom portray two women engaged in faintly ritualistic activities against trompe l’oeil backdrops that they appear to become part of, blurring the line between the reality and fiction.’ Caroline Walker
Scottish artist Caroline Walker has a BA in painting from the Glasgow School of Art (2004) and an MA from the Royal College of Art (2009) in London, where she currently lives and works. Recent solo exhibitions include Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; GRIMM, Amsterdam and New York; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; ProjectB, Milan and Space K, Seoul. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Sainsbury Centre, Norwich; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and Rudolfinum, Prague. Walker is represented in international collections including the Saatchi Collection, London; The Franks-Suss Collection, London; ING Bank Collection, Netherlands; Akzo Nobel Foundation, Netherlands, and the Kolon Group Collection, Korea. Her work was included in Phaidon’s Vitamin P3 and a monograph, Picture Window, was co-published by Anomie and GRIMM in 2018.
‘As a cohesive body of work, Walker’s paintings hint at a larger narrative that is never fully revealed to the viewer. The central character in Sunset is an aging beauty queen accompanied by her two small dogs, a pool boy, and a makeup artist. The viewer is given glimpses into the feigned private life as the woman moves about her day engaged in leisurely activities. Despite her attendants, the woman appears strikingly isolated within her environments— floating in the pool, brunching at the Beverly Hills Hotel, dwarfed by the towering greenery in the pastel light of dusk.
Walker’s paintings build upon the cinematic language of Los Angeles life. The icons and emblematic locations of the city are pulled throughout the constructed scenes. The main figure, a former Miss Colorado, becomes an actress in Walker’s paintings, playing into the fantasy and cinematic trope of the LA woman with the enviable life of ease and affluence. Using a hired model in a rented home in the hills, Caroline’s work becomes an appropriation of the process of movie making. Her paintings are captured moments of a carefully composed set yet distanced from their photographic origins through painterly gestures that abstract the body and exaggerate the psychological space they inhabit’. Anat Ebgi 2018
Also on display during this show is a series of photographs by veteran American photographer Duane Michaels. ‘Empty New York’ with it’s East Coast cool is a perfect companion to Caroline Walker’s West Coast Hollywood Hills. Click here for more..