Carolyn Little
Swansea
Carolyn Little was born in Swansea in 1943 but grew up in Haverfordwest. She studied at Swansea College of Art from 1962 until 1966, then taught Art in secondary schools in London and Swansea until 1990 when she gave up full- time teaching to become a part-time adult education lecturer for the University of Wales Swansea for some years and to concentrate on painting. She has been exhibiting her work regularly for the last thirty years.
"My work is to an extent abstract in that it does not necessarily represent anything in its final stage but the ideas come from various sources. Each painting starts because I have seen some thing or place that I have found visually interesting in some way. Perhaps an old piece of rusting machinery, a decaying tree trunk, full of distinctive shapes and exciting textures, an overgrown garden, some complex rock strata on a beach, the debris in derelict factory or the twisted metal of vehicles in a scrapyard, but these I use merely as basic shapes, not as reference. The pictures themselves evolve as the colours are added and begin to relate to each other. What they eventually become often takes a long time to reach with many re-visitngs before they are finished, and I have no idea when I start as to how they will end. My chief interest is colour and I am attracted to bright colours, so I am constantly trying to balance one strong colour with another, and I am constantly trying to intensify that brightness. I usually make square paintings because I like the discipline of having to fit my conception in to a uniform space. I always work on board as I prefer the hardness and stiffness of it and the capability of creating a very smooth surface to work on.
Essentially, my work is not based upon any literal vision or intention. I have no agenda, no political axe to grind and no sociological statement to make with it. It carries no hidden messages but exists in its own visual sphere and must be seen and interpreted as the viewer chooses to see it."
Public and private collections
Great Britain, France, Australia and Africa.
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