Caroline Bailey studied Printed Textiles (B.A. Hons) at Manchester Polytechnic, graduating in 1975 where she also went on to study an M.A. in Textile Design. After graduating from her M.A. in 1976, Bailey continued to teach here until the early 1980’s. Since then she has been a freelance, exhibiting regularly in England and Ireland.

Throughout her career, Bailey has been awarded many great awards. For example, she has been awarded the Royal Watercolour Society’s Daler Rowney award; the Royal Watercolour Society’s The Artist award; the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour’s Glasgow Arts Club Fellowship and Scottish Arts Club’s award; The Royal Scottish Academy’s N.S.Macfarlane Charitable Trust award; and she was also elected a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1998. As well as this Bailey has featured in many group and solo exhibitions and a lot of her work is kept in private collections.

About inspiration for her work, Bailey says “The elements of atmosphere, light and colour are the fundamental motivators for my paintings. The places that I paint abound with all these elements and have for me a compelling emotional appeal.” She also cites The Hebredian Islands as continually drawing her back. Of this, she says “I am intrigued by the meeting of sea and land-whether on the deserted shores of the North Atlantic or the sea ports of the East coast.”

On her work, Bailey describes: “My work is inspired by a love of land and sea and the footprints of human activity found where they meet. Although descriptive of the places I like, my paintings are not documentary but rather concerned with shape, colour and layering of textures. I hope to express something of the feel and atmosphere that I experience there. The painting, once begun, determines its own direction and its own conclusion.”