The Gentle Woman

At an incredibly empowering moment in time, Australian artist Caroline Walls is reshaping the meaning of femininity through her work.

- Lindyl Crabb

CAROLINE WALLS REMEMBERS the first drawing she ever sold. “I was nine,” she says. “It was a very colourful, not entirely accurate self-portrait with my cat.” There wasn’t a day that she wasn’t inspired to create, but after carving out a career as a designer and art director, she felt the pull to explore her own practice. “That leap into fulltime art-making was the hardest decision I’ve had to make,” Caroline recalls. “But my design career allowed me to approach art with a deeper consideration for composition, form and contemporary aesthetics.” A genuine appreciation for the female body is also a recurring theme in her work. “On a basic level I love the female form, but I’m also interested in what it means to be a woman today,” she explains. Her work is a representation of femininity – “strength, fertility, sexuality, fragility, burden and beauty” – expressed across multiple mediums. Drawing with charcoal feels freeing and expressive, while her canvas paintings require more time and planning. Although her self-portraits have likely matured, and her collections are now sh