Picture Window

Picture Window is the most comprehensive publication to date on the work of London-based Scottish artist Caroline Walker.

Celebrated for her striking, sometimes playful yet often challenging paintings of contemporary women in diverse architectural settings, Caroline Walker explores myriad social, cultural, economic, racial and political factors in her practice that affect women’s lives today. From the luxurious hotels of Los Angeles to the temporary social housing of female asylum seekers arriving in Europe, from nail bars to the private pools and nighttime parties of the European elite, Walker deftly broaches both everyday and more provocative subjects ranging from the pay gap to migrant workforces, the beauty industry to domestic roles, gender stereotypes to ageism. By addressing such themes and through her painterly virtuosity, Walker is rapidly becoming established as one of the leading British painters of her generation.

The publication features an essay and interview with the artist by art historian Marco Livingstone, along with a text by Andrew Nairne, director of Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, addressing the series Home, depicting the lives of women in temporary accommodation in London. Dr. Rina Arya, a professor of visual culture at the University of Huddersfield, focusses in her text on Walker’s paintings of nail bars, while a text by Paris-based writer Lauren Elkin introduces Walker’s glimpsed scenes of women at work, whether in hair salons, restaurants or office buildings. Developed by GRIMM and co-published with Anomie Publishing (UK), Picture Window is illustrated by around 170 images including paintings, studies, drawings and photographs.