Annabel Carey - artist

Annabel Carey has exhibited regularly for over thirty years with great success in oils, acrylic and watercolour and with her major touring exhibition "Spirit of Stones" using the medium of batik. Having drawn and painted from a very early age, it was whilst at Durham University that Ms Carey became interested in batik and used it there in textile design, later developing this traditional technique and applying it to landscape and architecture, creating pictures. This has included the twenty-year project of “Spirit of Stones”, which has resulted in over fifty batiks celebrating prehistoric stone circles and tombs of the British Isles. The collection of batiks is the subject of a series of touring exhibitions, a selection of limited edition prints and also a book with a foreword by Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at Bristol University. The first series of exhibitions has included the Marischal Museum, Aberdeen; Lotherton Hall, Leeds; Hereford Museum and Art Gallery; the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, and Newport Museum and Art Gallery, with further exhibitions planned in Wales, and throughout England. The technique has aroused much interest around the world and was featured in the August 2007 edition of “The Artist” magazine.

For a number of years she worked on a series of acrylic paintings exploring psychological landscapes. Such was the impact of these pictures that two of them were selected by the Royal Watercolour Society for display at the Bankside Gallery, London, during July 2003 in their C21 Exhibition – Watercolour in the 21st Century, with further pictures being included in the exhibitions in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008. Ms Carey has also exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy at Bristol, and her work has featured in their Friends Magazine. Ms Carey was also invited to exhibit at the Fosse Gallery, Stow-on-the-Wold in December 2006.

In February 2004 Ms Carey and her husband, the artist David Birch, were invited to join with the Rubio Quartet of Flanders in a celebration of the String Quartets of Shostakovich which took place at the Michael Tippett Centre in Bath. The complete String Quartet Cycle was performed and was accompanied by an exhibition of pictures inspired by the music. The success of the exhibition led to an invitation to display it at the Whitehead Building, Goldsmith’s College in London culminating in a Shostakovich Study day on 6 November 2004 in which the artists were invited to talk about their work.
Both artists were invited to exhibit at a special exhibition of paintings featuring Gloucestershire at Gloucester Museum and Art Gallery in November 2004 and also gave a one day workshop there as part of the national 'Big Draw', which attracted a capacity attendance.

2015 saw Annabel's latest touring exhibition "The Time of Trees", begin at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery and this was followed by invitations to join the Summer Exhibition and Christmas Exhibition of Fosse Gallery. In recent years Annabel has become a Fosse Gallery artist and has been invited to participate in a number of recent exhibitions there. Recent paintings have reflected her love of Ireland in a number of mediums.