Meet Caroline Walker, Visitor Decide for Jackson's Artwork Prize 2026 - Jackson's Artwork Weblog

This 12 months’s Visitor Judging Panel consists of six thrilling names from the artwork world of in the present day, every of whom shall be tasked with choosing one favorite from the longlist to win their Decide’s Alternative Award.

Caroline Walker joined us within the Jackson’s studio to debate her pivot away from photorealism, the significance of fresh brushes, and the way her earlier expertise getting into artwork competitions boosted her confidence when it counted.

Interview

Josephine: Inform us about your background. Did you get into artwork from an early age?

Caroline: I don’t come from a household with a lot of artists, and I used to be the primary one to actually go into that line of labor. However from an early age, I used to be simply mad for artwork. All I needed to do was draw and paint, and largely draw photos of girls, which is what I do as an expert artist as effectively.

Mothering, 2025
Caroline Walker
Oil on linen, 235 x 180 cm | 92.5 x 70.8 in
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Isla Macer Regulation

Josephine: You probably did a BA at Glasgow and an MA on the Royal Academy. What sorts of concepts have been you exploring in your work on the time?

Caroline: In some ways, what I used to be making then doesn’t look that completely different to the work that I make now. There’s all the time figures in interiors. However I used to be actually beginning to suppose, at that stage, about all of the work that I’d loved taking a look at most, which have been all the time work of girls, typically in home settings, and the way almost all of them have been painted by males. So I started to consider how I, as a feminine artist, may revisit these topics from a feminine perspective and in a up to date context.

Growth, 2014
Caroline Walker
Oil on linen, 145 x 190 cm | 57 x 74.8 in
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: Are you able to inform us a few profession spotlight or a memorable second you’ve had as an artist?

Caroline: One of many largest profession highlights for me has truly been within the final 12 months, with a present that I had on the Hepworth Wakefield, which introduced collectively work that I’ve remodeled the previous 5 years across the topic of mothering. Aside from the truth that this present is a spotlight for me, one of many important issues that’s been very validating about it’s the responses that I’ve needed to the work. A few of which have been very emotional, however of individuals feeling like they actually resonated with the themes or associated to them. And suggestions from the individuals who see my work is all the time a very powerful – it makes me really feel like I’m managing to seize one thing individuals can relate to.

Set up view, Mothering, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, 16 Could – 27 October 2025
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist and The Hepworth Wakefield. Picture: Michael Pollard

Josephine: Your work captures intimate moments and the often-overlooked labour inside ladies’s lives. Are you able to inform us extra about this theme?

Caroline: I’ve all the time been , as an artist, in ladies’s expertise. After which in round 2016, this turned extra targeted on serious about ladies’s working lives, and specifically, labour that may be much less seen to us. And that was actually prompted by trying round me within the metropolis an terrible lot extra. It began with a sequence of work of girls working in nail bars, after which it has developed by way of a lot of completely different topics, typically serious about ladies’s work. In the previous couple of years, serious about ladies’s work in relation to childcare and motherhood. In order I transfer by way of my very own life, and these completely different experiences have an effect on me, it appears to open up new topics for me inside this theme of girls’s work.

Refreshments, 2022
Caroline Walker
Oil on linen, 130 x 120 cm | 51.1 x 47.2 in
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: How a lot of your self and your personal expertise as an artist and mom will be present in your work? Has the autobiographical aspect of your work develop into extra current over time?

Caroline: In my work, I’m not typically bodily current in it, however there’s all the time a component of the work being a mirrored image of what’s occurring for me in my very own life on the time – what’s attention-grabbing me, what I’m seeing round me. Nevertheless it has develop into more and more extra autobiographical, I’d say, in the previous couple of years, significantly since I turned a mom, as I’ve needed to steadiness motherhood and my creative follow. They’ve needed to actually develop into rather more intertwined in a method.

Me and Laurie, Six Weeks Previous, 2024
Caroline Walker
Oil on board, 45 x 36 cm | 17.7 x 13.1 cm
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: You’ve talked about that in 2017 you modified your course of from extremely staged scenes to a extra documentary-style method, discovering actual topics as your supply materials. How did this transformation the result of your work?

Caroline: Round 2017, my work shifted fairly dramatically. I moved away from extremely staged, constructed work – the place I employed areas and fashions, styled them, and directed them inside a story I’d designed. As a substitute, I started taking a way more documentary method, responding on to actual individuals’s lives.

That’s had such a metamorphosis each on the concepts behind my work and the form of topics that I’ve been capable of handle, but in addition in the way in which that the work appears. It’s now the results of spending time shadowing ladies typically whereas they’re in a busy work setting and taking a whole bunch of images of them, after which making an attempt to work with these again within the studio. So the work is basically capturing one thing fairly casual about individuals’s working days and about the entire duties that they may be concerned in.

Paintbrushes in Caroline’s studio

Josephine: What’s a typical working day within the studio, and the way do you get into the fitting mindset earlier than working?

Caroline: There isn’t actually a typical working day for me within the studio nowadays as a result of I’m balancing working from dwelling, typically with childcare or form of different fixed interruptions, I suppose, actually. However the superb working day for me would begin at about 9 thirty within the morning and go till about 5 o’clock. And to get in the fitting mindset, I suppose it’s making a espresso, perhaps placing the radio on, and simply making an attempt to get myself excited in regards to the day forward, about beginning a portray.

Sketches: Lisa

Josephine: Are there any particular methods or phrases of knowledge that enable you to create your work that you’d be blissful to share with us?

Caroline: It sounds form of boring, however I believe in all probability one of the crucial vital issues that I try this helps me make my work is having actually clear supplies and a clear floor to work on. So I all the time clear my brushes correctly on the finish of the day and have a clear palette. and have good supplies. And I believe there’s one thing about figuring out that once I go to make use of these supplies, all of them will do precisely what I need them to do.

Magnificence Field, 2016
Caroline Walker
Oil on linen, 180 x 240 cm | 70.8 x 94.4 in
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: Have you ever ever had like a interval of artistic stagnation the place you simply really feel like you possibly can’t actually work, and the way have you ever gotten out of that?

Caroline: In all probability the final time that I had a interval the place I used to be actually struggling to work out transfer my work ahead was perhaps in direction of the top of 2013. Looks as if fairly a very long time in the past now. However I’d simply completed fairly an enormous present and was beginning to marvel transfer my work onto a brand new stage. I used to be nervous that it was perhaps getting slightly bit, virtually photorealistic, so I made a decision to take a while making an attempt to technically change what I used to be doing with my work.

On the time, I used to be working with these employed areas, so I intentionally employed a location for my subsequent set of work that had this trompe l’oeil wallpaper and fairly an odd inside. It helped me actually escape of what was turning into a really literal form of representational mode of portray and suppose rather more about truly the fabric, the materiality of paint itself. I used to be making these interiors the place the figures have been virtually in these landscapes, which have been created by this wallpaper. And I then got here again to working with rather more form of representational materials once more. However I discovered it a really useful train to assist me suppose rather more about portray as my medium.

Set up view, Caroline Walker, Start Reflections
The Fitzrovia Chapel, London, 8 February – 4 March 2022
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: What are you at the moment studying/watching/listening to?

Caroline: I hearken to a number of Radio 4, and a number of books on Audible, and are usually fairly drawn to issues that relate to my work in a roundabout way. Whether or not that’s books or packages that centre round ladies’s expertise in a roundabout way, in the intervening time, motherhood has been a theme that I’ve been drawn to. Or they may be about artwork, about artists or the artwork world or some side of feminist historical past, perhaps or sociology. One thing that, whereas I’m portray, may be percolating into my mind and informing what I’m doing in a roundabout way.

Sundown, 2017
Caroline Walker
Oil on linen, 270 x 210 cm | 106.2 x 82.6 in
© Caroline Walker. Courtesy the Artist; GRIMM, Amsterdam/New York/
London; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and
New York. Picture: Peter Mallet

Josephine: What exhibitions or artists have impressed you during the last 12 months?

Caroline: Considered one of my favorite exhibitions that I’ve seen within the final 12 months was Noah Davis at Barbican. I discovered very transferring, very delicate and superbly made work.

Additionally, this 12 months I went to Washington, DC, in the USA for the primary time and went to the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork there. I used to be actually greatly surprised by seeing a complete room of work by Mary Cassatt, who’s certainly one of my favorite artists. However on this nation, we’ve actually hardly bought any of her work in public collections, so I’ve been taking a look at her work loads in replica over the previous 4 or 5 years. It was actually inspiring for me to see a few of these within the flesh.

Sketches: Daphne

Josephine: Have you ever had any expertise with getting into artwork competitions your self, and if that’s the case, what have been some optimistic outcomes?

Caroline: I’ve entered a lot of artwork competitions myself through the years. In all probability my largest success was getting into the John Moores portray prize in 2006, as a younger artist in my early 20s. I bought accepted into the exhibition, which felt like an actual milestone for me, and such a validation of my work on the time. And I believe it actually spurred me on. It gave me the boldness to then apply to do an MA in London. So I believe artwork competitions can actually have such a job to play in serving to artists get their work seen, but in addition in giving them the boldness to maneuver ahead with their profession and their concepts.

Oil paints in Caroline’s studio

Josephine: How do you are feeling about choosing the winner of your personal Decide’s Alternative Award, and what’s going to you be searching for amongst the submissions?

Caroline: I’m actually trying ahead to seeing all of the submissions and to choosing my very own Judges’ Alternative Award. I believe what I’ll be searching for is perhaps an artist who actually understands use their medium to its greatest impact to speak their concepts. And I suppose one thing that perhaps makes me suppose otherwise about what I’m taking a look at or introduces one thing new.

Josephine: What recommendation would you give to artists who’re serious about getting into Jackson’s Artwork Prize 2026?

Caroline: I believe my recommendation to any artist serious about getting into the prize could be to enter the work that you just really feel represents you as an artist the perfect. Work that you’d need individuals to have a look at and perceive who you might be as an artist. And in addition to enter the perfect work that you’ve, as a result of that’s all the time going to have the perfect likelihood.

Studio view

About Caroline Walker

Caroline Walker is a up to date Scottish painter recognized for representing the on a regular basis lives of girls and highlighting the websites of their home and affective labour.

‘The topic of my work in its broadest sense is ladies’s expertise, whether or not that’s the imagined inside lifetime of a glimpsed store employee, a carefully noticed portrayal of my mom working within the household dwelling, or ladies I’ve had the privilege of spending time with, of their workplace. From the nameless to the extremely private, what hyperlinks all these topics is an investigation of an expertise which is particularly feminine.’

Previous notable solo institutional exhibitions embody these at The Hepworth Wakefield, UK (2025); Fitzrovia Chapel, London, UK (2022); K11, Shanghai, China (2022); KM21, The Hague, The Netherlands (2021); Midlands Artwork Centre, Birmingham, UK (2021) and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK (2018). Walker’s work can also be represented in main public collections together with Tate, UK; Nationwide Galleries of Scotland, UK; Longlati Basis, Shanghai, China; Institute of Modern Artwork, Miami, USA and Museum of Nice Arts, Houston, USA.

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