Caroline Banks is an Anglo-French contemporary artist based in London.
After graduating in Mixed Media Textiles from Loughborough University, she spent a decade working as an artist and designer, followed by a successful career in design for both fashion and interiors. In 2001, she moved to Asia, working in India, across China and Vietnam, before returning to the UK at the end of 2007. In 2014, she began exhibiting again and is now fully focused on her art.
Since returning to full-time studio practice, her work has focused on expressive gestural mark-making, layered ink, and mixed-media processes that explore the fluidity of energy and memory.
Banks collaborates with galleries, art consultancies, and directly with private collectors. She regularly exhibits at major art fairs, including The Other Art Fair (UK and USA) and the Affordable Art Fair London. Specialising in site-specific art commissions for individuals and organisations, her original abstract paintings are held in prestigious private and corporate art collections, including Claridge’s, Raffles at The Old War Office London and the Berkeley Group.
Deeply involved in the arts community, Caroline is the founder of Drawn to Think Differently—a workshop-based project helping adults reconnect with their creative thinking through mark-making. She also serves on the advisory committee for the international artists’ network ArtCan and publishes a weekly blog on this website sharing creative inspiration.
Her artworks range in size from intimate 15 x 10 cm pieces to large-scale installations, with her largest commission to date measuring 300 x 700 cm. A selection of available and past work can be viewed on the Gallery and Index pages.
My work celebrates the circularity of energy and the memory of gesture, a reflection on time and the profound connection between all things.
I explore the cyclical nature of life, death, and regeneration, treating these states as transformations of a single force, expressed through a personal vocabulary of calligraphic mark-making.
In a time of division, I use the circle as a motif to celebrate a non-hierarchical commonality, a reminder that we are made of the stars and intrinsically bound to our surroundings.
My process begins with observational drawings of figures in motion, evolving through repetition into a ritual of remembrance, an acknowledgment that all memory carries a sense of loss.
Working horizontally with gesso, ink, acrylic and metal leaf, I use artisan brushes to channel the energy of my own body, forming gestures that are partly rehearsed and partly intuitive. The resulting pieces are both dynamic and contemplative, inviting the viewer to pause and discover layers that reveal themselves over time.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Fresh Art Fair – BobCat Gallery
2025 The Audacity, London
2024 The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles
2023 Affordable Art Fair Battersea, London
2022
ING The Discerning Eye, London
The Affordable Art Fair Battersea, London
Legacy, Crypt Gallery, London
Kroll Paris, New York & London
2021 The Other Art Fair, London
2020
The Affordable Art Fair, London
The V-Art Show (online April, May & June)
2019
The Other Art Fair Brooklyn, New York
Elevate, London
New Horizons, London
2018
The Other Art Fair Brooklyn, New York
The Other Art Fair, Victoria House, London
Square Peg. Circle Gallery, Sheffield
2017
What is The Point? Camden Image Gallery, London
The Other Art Fair, Bristol
Appearances of…A&D Gallery, London
The Other Art Fair – Victoria House, London
2016
The Other Art Fair – Truman Brewery, London
Twitter Art Exhibit, Trygve Lie Gallery – New York
Group show – Luminaire Arts, London
2015 ThirtyforThirty – National Theatre, London
2014
The London Collective – Luminaire Arts, London
Fiumano Fine Art Summer Exhibition, London
The Affordable Art Fair Battersea, London
Fiumano Fine Art Spring Exhibition, London
1980s – 90s
1991 Prisma Artists – Imperial College, London; Take Five – Star Gallery, Lewes, East Sussex
1989 Women’s Eye – Highgate, London; Greenwich show – London
1988 Bodies – Old Bull Arts Centre – Barnet, London; London Contemporary Art – Lots Road, London; Arthouse Cash & Carry – Battersea, London
1986 Blowing in the Wind – Aspects Gallery, Whitfield St. London; Off The Wall – Alfred East Gallery, Kettering
1985 Rufford Crafts Centre, Rufford Country Park, Nottinghamshire; Aspects Gallery, Whitfield St, London; Cirencester Workshops, Gloucestershire
1984 Textile Art – Atlantic Road Gallery, Brixton, London
1983 Textile work from Loughborough College of Art & Design – Qantas Gallery, Piccadilly, London; Women & Textiles: their lives and their work – Battersea Arts Centre, London
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021 Pringle x Caroline Banks, Mayfair, London.
1987 Plastics – East Midland Arts touring show
1986 Male Bodybuilders – Nottingham; Bodybuilders – Heaven Nightclub, London
Work in private collections in the UK, France, USA, Africa, South America and India
Public Commissions
2018 11 large paintings for Berkeley Homes development in London
1989 Banner for Nottingham City Festival
1985 Hanging for Southampton City Hospital
1982 Installation for Monarch Knitting Machinery Ltd. Beaumont Leys, Nottingham
Publications
2015 ThirtyforThirty – Buro4 anniversary publication
1991 The Art & Craft of Appliqué – Juliet Bawden
Education
1982 BA Honours degree (First) in Mixed Media Textiles from Loughborough College of Art & Design (now Loughborough University).
Associations
I am actively involved in ArtCan, which supports and enables artists to develop their practice.
Find out more
Find me on social media to see recent examples of my work.
My weekly one-minute blog celebrates art and creativity in many forms.