Carol Burns. Artist Statement.

I am a Scottish born Artist living in Wiltshire, England, who is best known for her unconventional abstracts.

I am interested in people (Every single individual on this planet is a multifaceted being comprising many different identities with no single one providing the ultimate key to unlocking their character) and I find our internal and external narratives captivating. After all, we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticise, construct, gossip, learn, and love by narrative. It enables us to share our internal world in a meaningful way and helps us make sense of the external world we inhabit. Finding a visual means of examining those narratives, and the abstract ideas contained within them, is endlessly fascinating to me and it's those inner landscapes that I aim to capture within my work.

My paintings are not designed to be representational. I start with an idea or concept which I then explore through the layering of paint, intuitive mark making and collage. My process is a constant balancing act between control, instinct, reacting to the accidental and deliberately adding elements to provide contrast and interest.The end result is a work which is rich with history, colour and pattern all of which combine to capture the essence of the inital idea. Each piece is intentionally left open to interpretation which means that it is only complete when the viewer applies their own experiences and narratives to it.

I am member of the Artist Network initiative at the Royal West of England Academy of Art and a Visual Arts Assocation working artist.