Caryn Noad
Caryn Noad is an artist living and working in Suffolk, on the banks of the River Stour. She grew up in the Cotswolds, the fells of Lancashire and near the Cornish coast before her family settled in Suffolk.
She studied Print, Design and Planning at college, where she became interested in typography and hand lettering, including calligraphy and illumination. Her first job afterwards was making wizards at a pottery, and at the same time she painted signage for local companies. She left at nineteen to travel, ran a signwriting business for several years, then moved into graphic design.
She has had no formal art training. She enrolled in a weekly watercolour class in 2018, was invited to exhibit at the Sudbury Art Fair on the strength of it, and in 2020 turned to art full time. She has illustrated four children's books alongside commercial and private commissions.
Artist Statement
I am a mixed media artist, working predominantly with watercolour, pen, and charcoal. As an artist, I appreciate colour and greyscale equally and enjoy the diversity of using both in my art practice. I'm experimenting with combining charcoal, colour, and other mediums such as gold leaf, which is proving to be an enjoyable challenge. I feel there is much I can do with this and I look forward to sharing the results.
I draw influence from my love of travel as well as my local surroundings, so my subjects are diverse. The subject often determines the materials I will use. I believe that one inspires the other and helps to keep my art practice fresh and unpredictable. I find as much beauty in a decaying piece of rusting metal as I do in the natural landscape. The patterns, textures, and colours, that surround us, from a splash of graffiti to the way someone walks, a smell, or an overheard sentence, can inspire a painting in me. The challenge and sheer joy of turning these ideas into original artwork is my driving force.