Caroline Nevin majored in Concordia University's Studio Arts BFA program and graduated with distinction in 2003. She been producing artwork steadily since then; representing herself via social media, her website, and art fairs. She paints and draws with oil pastel, conté, water-soluble crayons, charcoal, silverpoint, and ink. She also creates mixed media collages with photography, paint and gold leaf.
Caroline's creativity is her compass. Painting is a tool she has used over half her life to process internal and external challenges and experiences. As someone whose life has been deeply impacted by mental illness and turbulence from her earliest years, art has been the one reliable source she can depend on to make sense of things and bring her a sense of safety and groundedness. To provide a brief history: Caroline lived in foster homes as a young child and then was placed back in the home of her divorced parents – one who struggled with post-war PTSD and alcoholism as a result, and the other who struggled with Schizophrenia. Stigma combined with narrow thinking and intergenerational trauma of that time period created an environment of extreme dysfunction, neglect, and turmoil.
Caroline discovered she could create her own path of discovery and reframe the adversity she came out of through the act of creativity.
Currently, she is interested in motifs about the cycle of human life intimately related to the cycle of nature. Her work is inspired by observations of human behaviour, feminism, mythology, and collapsing ecosystems. Specifically, she enjoys reframing archaic myths and depicting everyday women as empowered icons.
"As of March 2023, I am working on a body of work that seeks to bring greater awareness and create an appreciation for the symbiotic connection between humans and ecosystems in nature. As we enter the Anthropocene era with ever-present human supremacy, how can we begin to shift our relationship with alienated ecosystems that we have previously dismissed as less important than human life? Can the answers be found in that which we don't yet understand or care to acknowledge? Using women to symbolize intuition, I am using a feminist lens and considering how women have been represented in history through painting. Utilizing the gaze, I am considering patriarchal power structures, and how women are emboldened when we trust our intuition – our deepest nature. My most recent collection is inspired by snapshots from my vivid dreams."
