Carolyn Marr
Carolyn aims to make objects that catch the eye and invite handling. Experimenting with form has been a major strand of her work for some time - she likes to take a basic shape and see where she can go with it. As well as variations of form, her current preoccupations include simplicity and complexity, light and shade and the dynamics that may arise between groups of objects.
Often, found materials gathered on walks in the North Pennines and Lake District fells add a site-specific dimension - for example, her collection of hold-in-the-hand sculptures that contain sand or grit from rivers and coasts in Cumbria, Northumberland, Scotland and further afield. She is interested in seeing how different minerals behave when, combined with clay, they are subjected to extreme heat in the kiln. Some bead out of the clay, others melt and spread, and others still erupt and form mini-craters on the surface. For Carolyn, this act of ‘material diversion’ (taking small amounts of sand or grit from its current location and containing it in clay) prompts thoughts about how these grains of matter originated, and where – after their ‘suspension’ in her sculptures – they will end up. The ‘continuous’ form chosen to hold these materials refers both to the continuous plane of the basic form used in many of pieces, as well as to this element of continuing material journeys.
Based in Brampton, Northeast Cumbria, Carolyn grew up on the Isle of Wight. She originally studied modern languages and worked in the fields of education and environmental justice, gaining experience in Europe and Asia and traveling widely further afield before focusing on developing her art practice. She has exhibited widely in the UK and has received Arts-Council funding for her installation work Experiment! (2020-21) made in collaboration with her sister Frances and film-maker Lucia Tambini. Carolyn is currently studying for a master’s in Art and Archaeology.
