She Once Was traces the quiet, lingering spaces where womanhood, memory, and connection meet. In these paintings, draped fabrics – translucent veils – become extensions of the female figure, shifting between presence and absence. The window theme sits at the centre of this, acting as a site of longing, reflection, and possibility. It’s a place where light enters – where we pause to look out and inward at the same time. A symbolic representation of the threshold between inner and outer worlds – a container of feeling – between what is held close and what is allowed to drift beyond reach.
As Caroline Walls writes,
“I’m looking at the spaces that hold us and the versions of ourselves we carry forward. I hope the work sits between tenderness and uncertainty, recording moments of stillness that feel both deeply personal and quietly universal. Working with a restrained palette and translucent, thinly layered oil paint, I have let the under painting breathe through – the canvas remains open – much like how memories and emotions continue to echo beneath the surface of our lives”.
The textiles drape and fold through the rooms, suggesting the fluid connections between women—the tenderness, the weight of care, the shared histories that shape who we are and who we once were.
I’m thinking about womanhood as an ongoing negotiation between containment and expansion — between the embrace of the everyday and the pull of what lies just beyond the window’s frame.
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