Everything Has Its Price
24 -28 October 2023
Private View: Tuesday 24th October, 6 -9 pm
“Everything has its price” is a solo exhibition of works by Josette Carroll, focusing on her abstract work and plays on her own frustration with the perceived value of art. The paintings included in this, her first solo exhibition in London, are abstract and display several of her influences, which include the surrealism of Max Ernst, the dramatic colour contrasts of Kandinsky and the creative mechanics of Gerhard Richter. The exhibition also includes just a few of Carroll’s unique sculptures made from discarded cardboard packaging and these are heavily influenced by the work of Barbara Hepworth and Kurt Schwitters.
Central to the exhibition’s theme is “Vortex” commissioned by a client:
“This stunning, commissioned work started when I fell in love with the colours of a tiny set of prints at an open studios event where I first met Josette several years ago. Each print in the set was beautifully mounted in a frame and can’t have been more than 2 inches square. Yet one jumped out and I wished it had been much larger.
Sitting chatting over a glass of wine that late summer’s afternoon in her beautiful garden, I found myself commissioning a much larger original based on the colours and feel of the print.
Vortex was painted over a period of several weeks whilst Josette was in France with the idea that the heat and light would contribute greatly to the finished result. I fell in love with it immediately and when I heard the amount of time she had spent and the angst involved I felt a little guilty that I had underpaid but a deal is a deal.
After several years, it has lost none of its allure and still lights up the rather plain room it lives in. The colours lift my spirit and the feeling of seeing through a portal into a glimpse of another world gets me every day.
As my first ever commissioned piece, I swore I would never part with it but art is also business so I am prepared to sell it for £63,000 which I intend to split evenly with Josette. What will we both do with the money after that? That is up to us. I shall make sure I have an excellent print or perhaps I will commission another – if she will do it”.
Born in Mauritius, Josette Carroll was brought up in England and spent the majority of her working life in specialist education, helping children with severe dyslexia before turning to art later in life.
Carroll’s influences range from the Bauhaus school, Russian constructivist / supremacist art of the early 20th century and Abstract Expressionism such as Kandinsky, to more contemporary sculptural artists such as Keiffer, and Schwitters.
In most of her art, there is an element of self-discovery which she finds satisfying and exciting. Her work tends to be eclectic, incorporating a broad variety of processes and styles with a strong emphasis on the relationship between texture, form and colour.
Carroll at 81 continues to produce vibrant and exuberant work to match her personality.
