Caroline Walker – Janet

Scotland-born, London-based artist Caroline Walker is celebrated for her paintings exploring the lives of women, from those living luxury lifestyles to those fleeing oppression. In this publication, which was produced to accompany Walker’s first exhibition with Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, in Fall 2020, the artist turns her attention closer to home, presenting a series of paintings in which the focus is the artist’s own mother, Janet, as she goes about her daily tasks: cooking, cleaning, tidying, and tending the garden of the Fife home where the artist spent her childhood.

The publication features a newly commissioned essay and an interview with the artist by critic and author Hettie Judah. The essay opens by comparing Walker’s works to the Dutch Golden Age, encouraging consideration of everyday domestic scenes. Judah then leads the reader through Walker’s latest series of works, exploring the daily routines and household chores that have filled Walker’s mother’s days for the past forty years, along with the artist’s treatment of these activities. Judah deftly locates this latest body of work within Walker’s wider practice, opening up discussion of women at work in different industries and notions of invisibility. She asserts: "While Janet extends Walker’s long-held interest in women’s work, the series is also a loving undertaking. The artist offers us her mother with great pride, both in particular, and on behalf of other mothers overlooked and working out of sight." The interview offers further insight into Walker’s thoughts in relation to the "Janet" series, and to the working processes behind it.

The publication features around eighty illustrations of the preparatory studies and paintings that comprise this new body of work. It has been designed by Joanna Deans, Identity, with photography by Peter Mallet. The publication was produced by Ingleby, Edinburgh, and printed by Die Keure, Bruges. It was co-published in 2020 by Ingleby and Anomie Publishing, London, in an edition of 1500 copies.