About Carolyn
Who
I am a socially engaged artist living and working in Manchester, U.K. I have a BA (Hons) Fine Art in Painting from Manchester Polytechnic, an MA Art and Design from Sheffield Hallam University, an M.Phil. Fine Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. I have been exhibiting my work at home and abroad since 1991. My work has, of course, developed and changed over the years encompassing drawing, painting, installation, film, illustration, and curating - drawing underpins everything I do.
In Malta and New York, I researched and continue to research, my Maltese ancestry, combining this with a study of ‘Contemporary Artists of Maltese Origin’. In Chicago, I work every year work with a poet I met in 2001 on an illustration for Chicago Calling. This started with an Internship there with The John David Mooney Foundation where I achieved a Lorado Taft Fellowship. In Edinburgh and Malta, I assisted Richard Demarco for a season on the Festival Fringe co-ordinating an exhibition of Maltese Art.
What
My current interest in all things ‘forensic’ started in Atelier Hughes, an art restoration and conservation studio in Waterloo, Brussels where I assisted my sister, Melissa Hughes, working on the back of drawings and paintings to remove bits of dirt and tape. I remember sitting on the floor sifting through the contents of a vacuum cleaner bag with a pair of tweezers to find a really vital but tiny fragment of paper. This microscopic investigation of marks and materials combined with my experience of teaching in various institutions of Her Majesty, where I facilitate Open University and Distance Learning, inevitably informs my creative work.
Where
I am based in Manchester, Salford and Hebden Bridge.
Why
I am passionate about drawing and its transformative and transforming powers and will continue to communicate this to others both inside and out.
Carolyn Curtis Magri September 2015