GRIMM is proud to announce Nearby, a new solo exhibition by Caroline Walker (UK, 1982) in New York. Caroline Walker's paintings are a lens for the everyday lives of women, and her portraits of diverse subjects tell their story through the spaces they inhabit. Each of Walker's series conveys a distinct sense of time and place: from the undisguised luxury and class dynamics of beauty parlors in her series Painted Ladies, to the humanistic portraits of refugees and asylum seekers in Home, to scenes of anonymous women at work framed by the architecture of London in service. For her upcoming exhibition at GRIMM, Walker turns her focus to her immediate surroundings. She explores the boundary between being an observer - that is preserving the "objective" eye of an outsider - and magnifying the experience of a place which has become part of the fabric of her life.
Walker's new series of paintings were conceived as a reflection on community and how the anonymous people we encounter become characters in our own stories. Her subjects include a neighbor working in her garden, the local drycleaner and a pharmacy sales assistant, all of whom are connected within a discrete area of the sprawling London metropolis. Walker describes small movements of daily existence and encapsulates the corners of life which are often overlooked but nonetheless vital, written and erased from history over and over again. They also serve as a kind of self-portrait by recording the artist's journey through the places she frequents.
Walker has received wide acclaim for her portrayals of women as works of social commentary, although it is her ability to distill viewpoints from familiar settings and her talent as a colorist that first impact viewers of her paintings. The complexities of her subjects' lives filter through to the surface and coalesce in images that both fulfill the senses and speak to poignant moments of human experience. This exhibition will be Walker's fourth solo presentation at the gallery and the inaugural solo exhibition at GRIMM's new Tribeca space in New York.
