Women at Work: Caroline Walker
Caroline Walker’s intimate yet unintrusive paintings of women in their daily settings offer a fresh perspective on femininity
Maya Garabedian / MutualArt
Mar 28, 2023
There has been a lot of talk lately surrounding Scottish artist Caroline Walker. Her captivating paintings, even without the understanding of why or how they possess the power they do, has made her a star to watch. It is, in large part, because of the way Walker captures womanhood – not in the blank-stare opulence of the Renaissance or the objectifying male gaze of Romanticism, nor in active countering of such stereotypes, be it reclaimed sexuality, redefined femininity, or abstraction, all prevalent in the contemporary era. Instead, she’s taken a more true-to-life approach, highlighting the mundane, showing real women in their own context of the everyday. Capturing the nuanced reality of the mundane requires an anthropological approach, studying the subject in detail – something Walker is diligent about. The time she spends with her subjects can be easily read through her work. While staring at a seemingly straightforward scene, there are layers of emotion and history that are inexplicably inscribed within it, placing viewers in a respectful voyeuristic position, preventing the pitfall of watching a working woman in a way that feels exploitative.
Caroline Walker, Provisions, 2021, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Grimm Gallery.
For Walker, the artistic process begins by shadowing her subjects, photographing moments from their daily life that feel distinct and meaningful. From there, she makes technical compositions based on the photographs, first through loose pencil and charcoal drawings, and then oil studies on paper. After developing a series of reference images, the final version is produced freehand, allowing the artist’s own internal perspective to work its way into the captured scene. “The works combine a factual record of something that the source photographs represent,” Walker explains, “and my memories or emotional response to being in a particular place or spending time with the people I paint.” It’s as if the creation of reference material and the painting of the final product are two distinct things.
Caroline Walker, Stock Check, Morning, December, 2021, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Ingleby Gallery.
First comes the research-based approach. Working with photographs as a starting point establishes a set distance between artist and subject, constructing a more objective gaze that, in a sense, strips away what it feels like to be there with that person. This way of framing reference material, which Walker describes as a “levelling in that beginning part of the process,” creates a more equitable starting ground. The choice aims to remove bias that exists based on an artist’s personal relationship to their subject should a painting be made from memory. With photographs, whether Walker is capturing a scene of her mother in their family home or a stranger in a hospital setting, both are seen as women working through life. Walker admits that there’s no avoiding personal perspective in her work, and she doesn’t wish to. “There is, of course, editing and decision-making by me in what I choose to represent in a series of paintings, but that is more related to representing a complete view of what I experienced in a particular environment” she says. The goal is not an absence of her own self in relation to a subject in a space, but an absence of “any agenda connected to delivering a particular viewpoint on the subject.”
Caroline Walker, Newborn Check, 2021, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery.
While point of view, in a literal sense, will always vary, Walker attempts to view all of her subjects with the same gaze, regardless of who they are or what they are doing. This observational technique goes against the grain of the dominant narratives in portraiture, especially of the voyeur variety, that the gaze – the way an artist presents a visual and our approach to viewing it, neither of which are ever truly unbiased or innocent – exists on a binary. On one side is the overwhelmingly prevalent male gaze, informed by inequality and power differentials playing into colonial, hegemonic norms, defining beauty and ideals. And on the other is the female gaze, the feminist response to a centuries-old way of seeing, choosing to present a scene that doesn’t conform to conventional delusions, instead depicting a reality through female eyes, and subsequently catered more towards female eyes. However, Walker’s work lives in a space that isn’t quite the female gaze in a traditional sense, which may surprise some, given her association with the Feminist Art Movement.
Caroline Walker, Antibody Selection, 2019, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist Grimm Gallery.
The two-pronged idea of gaze is typically interlinked – for instance, a depiction of a female reality that asks for female viewership. Walker’s work does the former, but not so much the latter. It’s as if a small semblance of the distance provided by the initial photograph remains in the painting’s final form. As viewers, we witness a woman’s reality, without being asked to see with gendered sensibilities, perhaps because most pieces have little indication of being made by a certain type of person – male, female – but rather, a certain kind of person – loving, caring, hardworking. It is likely her multi-step process that has allowed Walker to circumvent a stereotypical gendered gaze despite a gendered overarching theme of women at work, and ultimately allows for making art that is truly for everyone. This interpretation does not discount her belonging in Feminist Art. On the contrary, modern feminism includes all women of all walks of life, strives to defy gender roles, and asks for more nuanced ways of seeing, all of which Walker is offering.
Caroline Walker, Waiting, 2018, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist and Grimm Gallery.
As a medium, Walker sees painting as a strong vehicle to present challenging subject matter, granting her the ability to build a visually enticing scene that embodies the time, energy, and care that making such a work entails. For that reason, it makes sense to have a photograph serve as an initial point of reference rather than letting it be the piece itself. Staring at Walker’s paintings, this preference exudes through her work. Her stylistic choices allow for detail while avoiding intense realism. With thick, loose brushstrokes, out-of-focus features, and a color palette often on the softer side, relying on shadows for dimension, we, as viewers, aren’t entirely invited into the scene. We are granted the ability to see every necessary detail, to feel every prevalent emotion, but we aren’t given the luxury of complete intrusion, which demands we see with respect. We understand what it is to be fully human in this world – different races, ages, and sizes, working in a variety of ways, be it in the hospital or the home. Moving forward, Walker will continue delving into the world of women at work, now with a new context of home, leaving England and moving back to Scotland with her family. We can expect to see more scenes of women’s involvement in early education and childcare with an upcoming series on nurseries, a fitting focus for an artist in the process of expanding her own family.
Caroline Walker, Sleepsuits, 2022, oil on board. Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery.
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