Caro Halford

In her new textural collage series, artist Caro Halford examines the social and political concerns of women, highlighting overlooked women of the past. This new series of collages also relates back to her performance work at the Tate Britain and National Portrait Gallery, as well as her ongoing research. Predominantly, her body of work spans from performance, video, sculpture to collage and photography.

In ‘Friends’, Halford decided on her topic of choice through her research on artist Maria Cosway. Maria Cosway was a female painter as well as an etcher and author during the 18th Century. In particular, Halford decided to focus on a meeting in 1779 between the artist Angelica Kauffman and Cosway. To explain, this meeting had taken place in London after her father’s death. Angelica Kauffman had been her mentor and introduced Cosway to her future husband. Crucially, Halford engages with feminism through her highlighting and celebration of overlooked women.

All in all, Halford uses this snippet of historical narrative to form a foundation for which to make her textural collage works from. Therefore, through the texts and the collage and through looking at women of the past, she focuses on the repositioning of these female artists. Most of all, through the visual interconnection of the text and imagery. In this particular work, she mixes many different media together in an experimental way. Specifically, she uses household materials and objects to create this new body of work. She uses varied sources to make these works.

(Photography by Susan Martin)