Artist of the Month - Caroline Liddington
Posted 20 June 2023
Our artist of the month for June is Dorset Visual Arts Member Caroline Liddington. She has an exhibition with fellow artist Lynne Grace at Eype Centre for the Arts later this month. Further information can be found below.
Here's what she had to say about her practice and working in Dorset:
Colour and narrative drives me to create images that depict the drama of the natural landscape around me. Characters or objects that I have chosen to reflect begin to tell a story, introducing their unique energy onto the picture surface and within me. Over many years of experimentation, I have produced a large body of work that combines a feast of colour with the actual, imagined, or remembered.
My preferred medium is oil on canvas, producing small, medium and large paintings full of the joy of the process, along with personal elements from my life. My hope is that viewers can identify with aspects of each image and narrative intuitively. My inspiration has always been the environment in which I live, the people who share my life, including my cats. The spaces I occupy and the walks I take in the natural landscape. Each painting begins with a single theme, then evolves into an intuitive process of combining colour, movement and imagination to tell the story of those moments as they were at that time.
How does working/living in Dorset influence your artistic practice?
Dorset is in my blood, with family going back many years, living and working in Portland and Weymouth. My life began in London, but I have felt compelled to eventually return to this home county.
The light and landscape is truly inspiring throughout the year. Weather, sea, wind and energy is abundant, and creates abundance within my work. In particular, the coast line between Bridport and Portland never ceases to fill me with awe and returns continually into the background of many of my paintings.
My studio is in a small country village, quiet and peaceful, a place of refuge and renewal, but also very close to Bridport, which possesses a unique energy, filled with colour and vibrancy, and always celebrating the creative arts in imaginative ways.
You can find out more about Caroline Liddington's work on her members profile here and on her website here.