CAROLINE WALKER (B. 1982)
FRAME, FIGURE, FRAME, FIGURE
signed twice, titled and dated '''FRAME, FIGURE, FRAME, FIGURE'' C. WALKER 2010 Caroline Walker' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
71¹⁄₈ x 84¹⁄₈in. (180.6 x 213.6cm.)
Painted in 2010

Mall Galleries, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010.

London, Mall Galleries, The Threadneedle Prize for Painting and Sculpture, 2010, p. 44 (illustrated in colour, p. 16).

Measuring over two metres in width, Frame, Figure, Frame, Figure is a monumental example of Caroline Walker’s intimate portrayals of women. Painted in 2010, it was shortlisted for the Threadneedle Prize for Painting and Sculpture that year. The work depicts a dark interior, a lone figure captured unknowingly within. The layout of the space simultaneously frames and obscures the scene, at first drawing our attention to the brightly-lit kitchen in the foreground, before leading our focus to the young woman on the sofa in the background. Placing the viewer in the position of voyeur, Walker explores the relationship between the woman and her domestic environment: a subject popularised throughout art history. However, by presenting the home as a banal, unidealised setting, complete with the likes of an exposed bin in the kitchen corner, Walker confronts our previous conceptions, revealing the dark underbelly of the gendered space. As the artist has stated, ‘I think it was this early questioning about the roles of women and that conflict between career and home that sparked a fascination that's continued in my work as an artist’ (C. Walker, quoted in L. Figes, ‘Seven questions with Caroline Walker’, Art UK, 10 February 2022).

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