Artist | Brighton

Carolyn Bew is an artist and educator based in Brighton, UK.

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Carolyn works both as a painter and printer, supporting a practice that depicts both people and animals - often in absurd or unsettling situations. The animus is primarily concerned with the dynamic and emotionally charged landscape of childhood, the complexity of relationships, and sense of self.

Whilst oil painting was for many years Carolyn's medium of choice, more recently she has been exploring the versatility of acrylic paint. The territory that Carolyn explores in her work is that thin yet rich veneer between the domestic and pantomime. For Carolyn, the ideas of nature and nurture are not static terms, but an evolving concept. Through the detailed observation of all things human, her work grapples with the idea of how a sense of self exists and has existed in the human imagination.

Carolyn’s printmaking, which uses the traditional etching and aquatint process that goes back to the 15th Century, is a medium that is perfectly suited to the portrayal of the allegorical and the complexities of the human condition.

Carolyn not only investigates the sense of self through her subjects but also the evolving attitudes and changing philosophical interpretations that make up a complex sense of identity, who we are, and our difficult attitudes to the animal world, so often seen as something apart.

Carolyn has a studio at Phoenix Art Space, where she also teaches life drawing. Carolyn is represented by Kellie Miller Arts.