biography
Carolyn studied art history at Queen's and the University of Toronto and taught art at the high school level. She left teaching to open a shop that specialized in decorative textiles from India, Africa and Indonesia. In the first incarnation of the shop Carolyn created her own hand-woven textiles – wall-hangings, rugs and cushions. Since closing the shop, she graduated from the Adult Art Program at Central Technical School in Toronto where in her final year she received The Wally Stefoff Award for Outstanding Body of Work in the CTS Open House Exhibition 2005.
Carolyn is now a full-time painter dividing her time between Toronto and Georgian Bay. Her acrylic and mixed-media paintings of rocks, roads, and foliage are close-ups of landscape (urban and rural) that focus on the abstract quality of surface patterns and textures - accidents resulting from natural erosion, the elements, and human use. This emphasis is likely a subconscious response coming from her close connection with textiles spanning many years. The 'zoomed-in-on' sections that become the paintings are cropped from the much larger landscape, like swatches from bolts of fabric.