Caroline Winn
Caroline has worked as a ceramicist since the early 1990s, although her interest and involvement in ceramics goes back to her childhood. She has studios by the Thames in Hammersmith, west London, and near St Ives in Cornwall, and splits her time between them. Her work has been sold to collections throughout the UK and overseas and exhibited in galleries in London and Cornwall.
Caroline has also taught ceramics extensively during her career. She has run courses for Dulwich Picture Gallery, the National Trust, The Art Academy London, St Paul's Girls' School and a wide range of other institutions in the UK. She also offers a number of residential courses each year at her home and studio in west Cornwall, as well as classes in her London studio.
In her earlier career, Caroline worked as a curator for South London Art Gallery, the Tate Gallery in London and private art galleries in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia.
"Between the mind, the world and the object"
Caroline’s highly individual ceramic sculptures are the outcome of an experimental, intuitive and constantly evolving process. They explore themes of ‘traces’ and, despite their scale, convey a sense of fragility, movement and transience - while leaving specific interpretation and response to the viewer. Some of her smaller sculptures, for example, are designed for display on steel poles and sway gently in the wind.
The form, colour and texture of Caroline's ceramics are often inspired by the landscapes of west Cornwall and the Thames in London. Retracing history discovered in debris along the shoreline, Caroline frequently fires these tangible remnants of human activity into the clay and uses the intense heat work of the kiln to affect and distort the poses and gestures of her figures, challenging the viewer’s assumptions and inviting conversation. More recently she has been working on a series of pieces based around clouds and their reflections in water.
Caroline uses traditional ceramic hand-building and glazing techniques and incorporates a mix of porcelain, paper, and black and white stoneware clays, as well as different layers of slips and oxides. Each piece is fired up to four times, with a final firing at 1260°c in either an electric or gas kiln. Recently Caroline has been working with smoke and saggar firing techniques.
Recent exhibitions
Alive in the Universe
Caroline Wiseman Gallery video installation, Venice Biennale
Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe
Tremenhhere Sculpture Park
Sept-Oct 2019: Ceramics Southern Africa workshop and lecture tour
June 2019: Handmade Oxford
May-June 2019: Alive in the Universe, Caroline Wiseman Gallery, Venice Biennale
March 2019: Affordable Art Fair, London
Sept 2018: Ebb & Flow, Thames Festival, London
July 2018: Tremenheere Art Gallery, Cornwall
Jan-March 2018: Artist in Residence, Fred Olsen Cruise Lines
Sept 2017: Thames Festival, London
June 2017: Shoreham Sculpture Trail for The London Group
May 2017: Tremenheere Sculpture Park, Cornwall (permanent installation)
April 2017: London Potters Exhibition, Barbican Art Gallery, London
Feb 2017: Johnathan Tucker Fine Art, St James’, London
Nov 2016: Society of Arts in Cornwall Exhibition, Penwith Gallery, St Ives