Embodied: studies of the body in sculpture and drawing

Caroline Ingham makes non-figurative, three-dimensional forms, examining the body in states of vulnerability and uncertainty. Working across painting and sculpture, her approach is one of speculative making, grounded in material experimentation.

Central to her practice is a distinctive sculptural technique developed through sustained experimentation with distemper-impregnated paper that is waxed, painted and stitched. This enables her to investigate surface, skin and structure in ways that resonate with the body’s physical and emotional landscape.

Her work considers how the body carries traces of experience, endurance, resilience and transformation, reflecting an ongoing fascination with the human form and the history of scientific inquiry. Many works develop from drawings made in museum medical collections.

Informed by her lived experience of chronic illness, the transformative effects of modern medicine, and the anatomies she studies through drawing, Caroline’s sculptural works bear the marks of their making. Suffused with a lingering anxiety, they suggest something withheld: an inner, secret body; partly shielded, partly exposed, lingering just beneath the surface.

Embodied at the Old Shop Gallery offers a rare opportunity to see Caroline’s research drawings alongside finished works. Visitors are invited to explore the relationship between drawing, material and sculpture, which Caroline will discuss in greater depth during her Artist Insight talk. She will also reflect on the central role of materials and process in her practice, with visitors invited to handle selected work-in-progress samples.