Caroline Walker’s exhibition "Birth Reflections" opens tomorrow at The Fitzrovia Chapel, University College Hospital (UCLH) in London (UK).
The exhibition follows her recent residency at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson maternity wing at University College Hospital (UCLH). Caroline Walker is known for painting women at work and often behind the scenes, from hotel maids to her own mother. This new series of paintings sees her capture midwives, doctors, cleaners and mothers, and is inspired by a series of four paintings by Frederick Cayley Robinson ‘The Acts of Mercy’.
Caroline Walker explains about the new series: “When I first started speaking to UCLH about a residency there were a number of departments that interested me as potential subject matter. It wasn’t until I found out I was pregnant and began attending appointments at the hospital as an expectant mother that I began to develop a particular interest in the areas I was visiting. Trips to the maternity wing for scans, blood tests, antenatal classes and then the birth itself were both a new experience emotionally for me, but also visually. At some point during this period I decided that the maternity wing would make the ideal subject for my work, bringing together my personal relationship to this hospital with an ongoing interest in depicting women’s working lives through painting.”
"Birth Reflections" is on view at Fitzrovia Chapel, Univeristy College Hospital (UCLH), London (UK) from 18 February - 4 March, 2022.
