About Caroline Tate - ctate.co.uk

About Caroline Tate I studied Fine Arts at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London, where many of my paintings were of car parts! I started to sell my work then worked in advertising, later moving to Scotland to work in a Recording Studio, getting involved in local music and advertising on buses, tv and radio. My two sons were born in Edinburgh then I moved back to London and continued to sell my paintings. I had a daughter in 1986 and did a B.A. Degree in Education and Training and began teaching painting to many groups including Housebound Learners, the U3A, a Day Centre, Adult Education, plus helping Day Patients at a local hospice. I helped school children in the Big Draw at Guildford Cathedral and at Southwark Cathedral.

Past work includes many paintings of landscapes in Norway, Prague, Italy, New Zealand and of course many scenes in the UK. I had a year painting cathedrals, then ‘bridges of London, Prague and Paris. The emphasis has always been on light, exuberant colour and effects with texture often playing a part. I love to have several works on the go at once. Music plays a huge part in my life and I have painted over 75 paintings based on music, often that of Gustav Mahler!

Exhibitions have included 2 solo shows at the Barbican Library, and at the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, Putney Arts Theatre twice, Celia Purcell Contemporary, Oxon Hoath Conference Centre, Guildford Cathedral, Wine Gallery Chelsea, Landmark Festival of Song, and many others.

I have donated paintings to many charities to raise funds including: Walk the Walk, Sam Beare Hospice, The Princess Alice Hospice, CHASE Children’s Hospice, Breast Cancer, Oxfam and in 2010 on 7th July the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth, I auctioned two paintings of his music to raise money for In Harmony children’s music charity in Lambeth.

2011 exhibitions: Southwark Cathedral Refectory: “London Light” acrylics and prints of London skylines, and the Thames. In July I exhibited 36 paintings of the music of Gustav Mahler at the Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey, in conjunction with an international conference on Mahler there.

Many visits to a Tuscan Art School has inspired much work and the time there in June 2011 has led to a huge body of drawings, paintings and mixed media based on the links between the shapes and patterns of olive trees, stones and the landscape. This has continued looking at UK landscapes and trees also.

I am a Freeman of the Mercers’ Livery Company, on the Committee of the Gustav Mahler Society UK, and on the Committee of the Friends of the Philharmonia Orchestra.