Caro Williams
Caro Williams
London, South West, United Kingdom
About Caro Williams
Caro Williams is a London-based installation and mixed media artist who works with symbols, sound, language, and nuance.
'Caro Williams’ work is actually quite hard to describe in a nutshell but that doesn’t detract from its accessibility and magic. Indeed its refusal to be pinned down goes to its very heart.
Caro recently wrote that she is ‘searching for the moment in which intelligibility fades into ambiguity and mystery.’ She often translates or ‘processes’ things – sounds, words, film clips, lines from poems, ideas – into another materiality through erasure, covering, digital manipulation or reconstitution via another substance. There is a poetic oddness to these processes. Sounds are silenced as they get transformed into materials (for example, sound waveforms in glinting metal, or silence is made manifest through the lushness of velvet) and these in turn become apprehended by another sense – sight – as well as a visceral appreciation of the material used.
The process of translation leaves a kind of poem in the viewer’s mind. We are suspended in a dreamlike space where meaning is ambiguous: we see and hear something that is familiar yet at the same time it is out of reach. Perhaps this is why, despite the beauty and pleasure of the work, there is something melancholic about it too.'
－Deborah Burnstone, Artist
Caro Williams was born in Hong Kong and studied fine art in London and Auckland. She was awarded a postgraduate research scholarship and an MA in sculpture (1st class Hons) from AUT Auckland.
Caro exhibits in galleries and outside environments both nationally and internationally. She has received a number of awards and funding for her work, including the 2013 Headland Sculpture Biannually Selectors Award, and was a 2016 recipient of the Creative New Zealand WW1 Centenary Co-commissioning Fund. Projects include Cicatrix 2016-2018, an international artist collaboration with exhibitions and residencies in New Zealand, UK, and Canada. and in 2019, together with Deborah Burnstone, she co-curated Contemporary Art + Ritual, a group exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, London.
Caro is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors (MRSS), Arts Territory Exchange, and Axisweb.
Caro’s work is held in public and private collections including the Wallace Arts Trust, New Zealand, and Luciano Benetton Imago Mundi Collection, Italy.
'Caro Williams’ work is actually quite hard to describe in a nutshell but that doesn’t detract from its accessibility and magic. Indeed its refusal to be pinned down goes to its very heart.
Caro recently wrote that she is ‘searching for the moment in which intelligibility fades into ambiguity and mystery.’ She often translates or ‘processes’ things – sounds, words, film clips, lines from poems, ideas – into another materiality through erasure, covering, digital manipulation or reconstitution via another substance. There is a poetic oddness to these processes. Sounds are silenced as they get transformed into materials (for example, sound waveforms in glinting metal, or silence is made manifest through the lushness of velvet) and these in turn become apprehended by another sense – sight – as well as a visceral appreciation of the material used.
The process of translation leaves a kind of poem in the viewer’s mind. We are suspended in a dreamlike space where meaning is ambiguous: we see and hear something that is familiar yet at the same time it is out of reach. Perhaps this is why, despite the beauty and pleasure of the work, there is something melancholic about it too.'
－Deborah Burnstone, Artist
Caro Williams was born in Hong Kong and studied fine art in London and Auckland. She was awarded a postgraduate research scholarship and an MA in sculpture (1st class Hons) from AUT Auckland.
Caro exhibits in galleries and outside environments both nationally and internationally. She has received a number of awards and funding for her work, including the 2013 Headland Sculpture Biannually Selectors Award, and was a 2016 recipient of the Creative New Zealand WW1 Centenary Co-commissioning Fund. Projects include Cicatrix 2016-2018, an international artist collaboration with exhibitions and residencies in New Zealand, UK, and Canada. and in 2019, together with Deborah Burnstone, she co-curated Contemporary Art + Ritual, a group exhibition at the Crypt Gallery, London.
Caro is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors (MRSS), Arts Territory Exchange, and Axisweb.
Caro’s work is held in public and private collections including the Wallace Arts Trust, New Zealand, and Luciano Benetton Imago Mundi Collection, Italy.
Education
ART QUALIFICATIONS
2008 Master of Arts (1st class Hons), AUT, Auckland
2005 Bachelor of Visual Arts, AUT, Auckland
1996 Foundation Fine Art, Camberwell College of Arts, London
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
2018 Funding and Support received from New Zealand Embassy, London
2017 Funding in kind and Support received from Manurewa Local Board, Auckland Council
2016 Funding and Support received from Creative New Zealand –WW100 Co-commissioning Fund
2015 Finalist (2nd place in category), Celeste 7th International Contemporary Art Prize
2015 Awarded – Distinguished Artist Award, ArtAscent, Art & Literature Journal, June 2015
2014 Finalist, 23rd Annual Wallace Art Awards
2013 Awarded the Gen-i Selector’s Award, Headland Sculpture On The Gulf, Waiheke
2008 Awarded the Wallace Arts Trust Award for Most Promising Visual Arts Postgraduate
2007 Awarded a Postgraduate Research Scholarship (Visual Arts), AUT University
2008 Master of Arts (1st class Hons), AUT, Auckland
2005 Bachelor of Visual Arts, AUT, Auckland
1996 Foundation Fine Art, Camberwell College of Arts, London
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
2018 Funding and Support received from New Zealand Embassy, London
2017 Funding in kind and Support received from Manurewa Local Board, Auckland Council
2016 Funding and Support received from Creative New Zealand –WW100 Co-commissioning Fund
2015 Finalist (2nd place in category), Celeste 7th International Contemporary Art Prize
2015 Awarded – Distinguished Artist Award, ArtAscent, Art & Literature Journal, June 2015
2014 Finalist, 23rd Annual Wallace Art Awards
2013 Awarded the Gen-i Selector’s Award, Headland Sculpture On The Gulf, Waiheke
2008 Awarded the Wallace Arts Trust Award for Most Promising Visual Arts Postgraduate
2007 Awarded a Postgraduate Research Scholarship (Visual Arts), AUT University
Exhibitions
Recent Exhibitions
2020
Summer Exhibition, Royal Society of Sculptors, London
Sound Library, Arts Terrirtoy Exchange and Muck (Must Use Critical Knowledge)
Automated, Fringe Arts Bath, Virtual edition
In the Silent Air selected for inclusion in Fabrizio Paterlini – Piano Microstories – The Eighth Note Publication
2019
4th Today’s Documents: A Stitch in Time, Arts Territory Exchange, Today Art Museum, Beijing
Soundscape – Iceland selected as New Art Highlight by Axisweb (23-29 September 2019)
Put this in Your Window and Think of Me – Arts Territory Exchange, Dept of Land Economy Cambridge University and Cambridge Artworks Gallery
The Blue Hour selected as New Art Highlight by Axisweb (13-19 May 2019)
Contemporary Art + Ritual, (co-curator + exhibiting artist), Crypt Gallery, London
2018
Cicatrix Imprime, Atelier Circulaire Gallery, Montreal, Canada
Cicatrix, Swindon Museum & Art Gallery, Swindon, UK
Call and Response, Trowbridge Arts, Trowbridge, UK
Shifting Ground off-site, London, as a solo component of Shifting Ground, Silo 6, Auckland, NZ
Peace Drawings I II, III selected in Five2Watch: NEON by Axisweb
2017
Call and Response (Solo exhibition), Nathan Homestead, Auckland, NZ
Drawing from Voice Installation selected for ‘Text’ Category of the Week, Axisweb
White Night Auckland, Auckland Arts Festival, NZ
Call and Response, Study in Brass, selected for ‘Metalwork’ Category of the Week, Axisweb
Call and Response, The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant, UK
2016
DUST Collective, LOOK@K’ROAD, Auckland Artweek, Auckland
Kiwi Consciousness, Imago Mundi, Trieste, Italy
Call and Response, Salisbury International Arts Festival, Salisbury, UK
Finalist Exhibition, Celeste 7th International Contemporary Art Prize, ex-BAZZI, Milan, Italy
2020
Summer Exhibition, Royal Society of Sculptors, London
Sound Library, Arts Terrirtoy Exchange and Muck (Must Use Critical Knowledge)
Automated, Fringe Arts Bath, Virtual edition
In the Silent Air selected for inclusion in Fabrizio Paterlini – Piano Microstories – The Eighth Note Publication
2019
4th Today’s Documents: A Stitch in Time, Arts Territory Exchange, Today Art Museum, Beijing
Soundscape – Iceland selected as New Art Highlight by Axisweb (23-29 September 2019)
Put this in Your Window and Think of Me – Arts Territory Exchange, Dept of Land Economy Cambridge University and Cambridge Artworks Gallery
The Blue Hour selected as New Art Highlight by Axisweb (13-19 May 2019)
Contemporary Art + Ritual, (co-curator + exhibiting artist), Crypt Gallery, London
2018
Cicatrix Imprime, Atelier Circulaire Gallery, Montreal, Canada
Cicatrix, Swindon Museum & Art Gallery, Swindon, UK
Call and Response, Trowbridge Arts, Trowbridge, UK
Shifting Ground off-site, London, as a solo component of Shifting Ground, Silo 6, Auckland, NZ
Peace Drawings I II, III selected in Five2Watch: NEON by Axisweb
2017
Call and Response (Solo exhibition), Nathan Homestead, Auckland, NZ
Drawing from Voice Installation selected for ‘Text’ Category of the Week, Axisweb
White Night Auckland, Auckland Arts Festival, NZ
Call and Response, Study in Brass, selected for ‘Metalwork’ Category of the Week, Axisweb
Call and Response, The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant, UK
2016
DUST Collective, LOOK@K’ROAD, Auckland Artweek, Auckland
Kiwi Consciousness, Imago Mundi, Trieste, Italy
Call and Response, Salisbury International Arts Festival, Salisbury, UK
Finalist Exhibition, Celeste 7th International Contemporary Art Prize, ex-BAZZI, Milan, Italy
