Hello, I'm Carolina
I’m a Mexican artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne.
I paint because I’m interested in the way places, people and moments stay with us, and how colour can carry that feeling into a painting.
I grew up in Mexico City and now live in Newcastle, so ideas of home, belonging and memory naturally find their way into the work.
The subjects can change, but what connects them is the reason I’m drawn to paint them in the first place, and the space a painting leaves for someone else to bring their own memories and meaning to it.
About Carolina
COLOUR, PLACE AND WHAT CONNECTS US.
I paint places that stay with me and create space for others to find connection through painting.
My journey
I originally trained in interior design, where colour, composition and atmosphere were already part of how I thought.
When I began painting more seriously, I experimented with all sorts of subjects. I still don’t feel the need to stick with one thing forever. What connects my work is the way I use colour and paint, and increasingly the sense of connection that draws me to something in the first place.
For a long time, art was something I fitted around the rest of life. More recently, I’ve been able to give it the time and seriousness I had wanted to for years.
A lasting influence
Painting became much more important to me later, partly through my grandmother. While living with dementia, she began going to painting sessions and made many paintings. One of them eventually came to live with me here in the UK.
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What that painting means to me has very little to do with what is actually painted on it. For me, it carries memories of her, a particular time and something of our relationship. Someone else might look at the same painting and see something completely different.
That stayed with me. I like the idea that a painting can begin with one person’s experience, but its meaning doesn’t have to stay there. Once somebody else sees it or lives with it, they bring their own memories and associations to it.
Beyond Trees
Making this collection helped me understand that what matters to me is not only what I paint, but the memories, associations and sense of place we bring to an image.
It also gave me a clearer direction for what comes next. I don’t want to be tied to one subject. What matters is making work that has something behind it, then leaving room for somebody else to bring their own story to it.
Pause & Paint
That same belief sits behind Pause & Paint, an important part of what I do.
I don’t think painting only matters when the result is technically impressive, or when somebody considers themselves an artist. There is value in the act of making something itself: slowing down, noticing, spending time with colour and giving your attention to something completely different for a while.
For me, my own painting and Pause & Paint come from the same place. Both are about connection, whether that is to a place, a memory, another person, or simply the experience of making something yourself.