About

Carolyn McCosker’s landscape paintings are deeply attuned to the colours and patterns of nature. 

The artist's work is rooted in her early experiences of growing up on a remote farming property in north-western NSW. Combining this embodied history with roaming travels overseas, broad reading and poignant inspirations—from Post-Impressionism, to Buddhist philosophy and traditional Chinese painting—she has developed a unique vision of remote Australia. In her paintings, Carolyn works to reconcile her sense of connection to the Australian landscape with her position within settle-colonialism and its legacy of climate change. In turn, her work is inspired by both avant-garde and non-Western aesthetics, shifting between aerial and linear perspectives to capture her feelings of being immersed within the land. 

Carolyn works intuitively, coaxing her works into being. Working confidently across Pop-like figuration, Cèzannesque expressive mark-making and shimmering Pointillist detail, Carolyn’s flowers shoot upwards, delightfully blue creeks run through and water the land, crops grow in neat rows and the landscape spreads beyond the edges of the canvas like a patchwork quilt. At times she captures nature’s rhythms. At others we see her pushing paint around the canvas, deconstructing and reconstructing the land into intriguing and satisfying compositions. Sometimes her canvases are intimate, moody or sun-parched. At others the fecundity of her expansive landscapes explodes in vibrant pinks, oranges, blues and greens. Across these diverse iterations of the land, Carolyn faithfully captures Australia’s wondrous light.

By enveloping us in nature’s sensorial affects, Carolyn presents a uniquely feminine vision of the Australian landscape. Moreover, by prioritising vitality and integrity within her painting practice, she shares with her audiences the possibility of renewed wonder, contemplation, and delight.