Background

Karina Carrington MRBS originally studied Art Textiles and lectured in Further Education at Chelmsford College and in Adult Education.  As a textile artist she exhibited around the UK, taught freelance workshops for both adults and children, and delivered lectures about her work.  

In 2003 she returned to full-time education, gaining a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art. Subsequently, she co-ran a home interior business and taught art at a secondary school. She has since returned to developing her own art practice and became a tenant at Cuckoo Farm Studios in 2010. 

Karina has exhibited around the UK and has work in both private and public collections. She has a Masters Degree in Sculptural Practice from University of Essex and is an elected Member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

Artist Statement 

Mind and body have a symbiotic relationship, but while the body has its own physical boundaries, the mind cannot be measured. It contains all our thoughts, memories and feelings but can’t be seen. Our memory doesn’t see things as they really were, it’s like a haze of reality, and the way we recall something is different to how it actually was. The depiction of this intangible space has become the essence of my work.

The mind can take us to secret spaces of imagination and memory. These are the spaces we first go to in our childhoods, creating our own invented worlds of make-believe, secret places and hideaways.  I want to recreate the same sense of wonderment and awe that I had as a child when I explored small spaces, a sense of creating my own world of imagining. Rather than recreating specific spaces, I aim to evoke those feelings of childhood excitement, amazement and an intrepid exploration of imaginary worlds.

Using traditional casting and mould making techniques, I aim to make tangible the concept of the world on the inside.These mysterious inside spaces have become a metaphor for the mind and the space that it contains, but that we are unable to see.

My sculptures also play with the conventions of the standard plinth, so that the plinth itself becomes part of the work. The smooth, flat exterior planes create a liminal space between us and the world on the inside, between the known and the unknown. We are drawn into a mysterious, cave-like interior that is both universal and intimate, leaving us wondering about the parameters of the space. The exterior planes have become as minimal as possible, creating a skinlike periphery to what is inside.