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.
She has shown
works locally at Colin Jellicoe Gallery in Manchester and the
PJK Gallery, Skipton. She has also shown at Galerie le Petit Chien,
Pyrenees, France.
Recent Group and solo exhibitions include: Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester;
Henri Cording Gallery, Rennes, France; Hind Street Gallery, Ottery
St. Mary, Devon;
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@wanadoo.fr
Website: www.artistsmock.com/CAROLINE.
Also see Caroline's Blog: http://artistsmock.blogspot.com.
