The Artist
Caroline
Johnson was born during one of the worst winters on record in
Sharoe Green Maternity Hospital, Preston. Brought up on a post-war
housing estate, archived drawings (aged five) already show a
keen eye for detail such as washing on a line and fluff under
a bed. By the age of nine she was copying photos of the stars
from the Radio Times and had decided to become an artist,
feeling that her inherent shyness precluded a career as an air
hostess.
Caroline
studied at the Harris Art School in Preston, a grand neo-Classical
building with sweeping steps leading to Avenham Park and the
river. An extra year's Foundation Course was spent at the palm-clad
Falmouth School of Art. Thence to London, and a late Sixties
'Withnailesque' existence, leading to a Diploma in Art and Design
from the Central College of Art, studying under such illustrious
names as Cecil Collins, Colin Cina and Paul Huxley. Caroline
now divides her time between Brittany in France and the North
West region of England.
Caroline's
work leans towards the urban and the architectural, yet she's
equally happy with landscape, portrait, still-life and the nude.
Of her recent Manchester cityscapes, she says:
"Lowry's
downcast crowds on the white pavements had little energy left
for the elegance of the urban or the grace and symmetry of
the functional. It was up to him, the artist to say, look,
here is beauty among the mediocre and the commonplace.
My crayon, my paint seek out the dusty forgotten corners of
the city and its fresh shimmering heights and I give them
life and restore them to you the passer by- the man returning
home from work , the busy shopper and the clubber out for
fun.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the city's passing parade!
The charm of a humble nettle growing out of the pavement,
creeping shadows, forgotten doorways and broken fences. The
watchful solidity of a gasworks and the resplendence of red
brick , the mystery of parked cars… the enigmatic shapes
of the renewed and the newfangled- and the glittering giants
against the steadfast skies."
Caroline
is a tutor for Drawing and Painting Courses at Chateau l'Age
Baston, La Rochefoucauld. Regular workshops are also held in
the artists own studio. She has had numerous public mural commissions
and artworks for Chambers of Trade in Devon and France.
A recent
commission from an Interior Design Partnership for five artworks
of Salford old and new, can be seen at Pizza Express on Salford
Quays. The paintings have been made into large, sound-absorbant
panels.
To see more of these paintings and others - click
here.
Caroline
shows her work regularly at the following galleries:
The Colin Jellicoe Gallery, Portland Street, Manchester.
Seegallery, Crawshawbooth, Rossendale, Lancashire.
PAD Gallery, Preston, Lancashire.
Novus Contemporary Art, 230 Burton Road, West Didsbury.
Contact
details:
UK: 14 Kirkfields, Chipping, Lancashire PR3 2GL.
France: Le Bourg, la Chapelle Blanche 22350 Caulnes.
Tel: (mobile) 0780 5539 356
or (France) 00 33 (0)296838749.
Email: artistsmock@sfr.fr.
Website: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/artistsmock/pages/CAROLINE.htm.
Also see Caroline's Blog: http://artistsmock.blogspot.com.
