a time there was... Mixed media on paper   25 x 40cm 

Having started and established a career in teaching, Hilary switched direction to become a full time artist in 1990.

Hilary Carr first began expressing her creativity through printmaking and ceramics before concentrated her artistic attentions on the wide ranging possibilities offered by painting. Watercolours, oils and mixed media have been used to tackle a variety of subjects, from landscapes and townscapes to portraits and still life.

The effect of light on both colour and form has always been a key feature of Hilary's work and this relationship has been thoroughly explored in her most recent works. In her work she always strives to paint tonally, and to give the painting its own character through brushwork.

Her studio paintings tend to be more concerned with colour and its translation into mood and atmosphere, but all the work is rooted in first hand experience of the subject.

Over recent years Hilary has been working on a series of paintings about the dereliction and decay of once lived in places. Derelict places have always held a fascination, and work on this theme crops up time and time again in her work. This time she has based her paintings on a particular house in Bowland, once occupied by tenant farmers, now decaying untouched by human hand, since it was vacated probably in the 70s.  This location has provided a very rich seam of work.  Examples are on the website.