ABOUT CAROLINE TOWNING

Caroline grew up near Harrogate in Yorkshire surrounded by dogs and horses. Her mother had ridden and kept horses for her entire life and Caroline had been taught to ride before she could even properly talk. It was no surprise that her first drawings were of horse and dogs. 

As a young child Caroline always had a pony and as she grew into her teens she became a keen amateur showjumper and became a familiar face on the Yorkshire circuit. Most of her younger years were spent riding through the Harewood Estate with friends and looking after her horses kept at Wikefield Farm. 

As a young equestrian artist, she would spend hours studying the horse sitting in the stable and during the summer she would sit in the fields sketching the horses grazing. These early years gave her a good grounding in the understanding of how to draw horses. Spending so much of her early years with horses has given her a deep understanding of the animal.  

Caroline currently lives in London and works mainly on large-scale horse paintings on canvas. Her much-loved medium is oil but she also does a series of watercolour sketches before embarking on any new painting. Her mission is to capture the essence of the horse and each painting is meant to bring the presence of the horse into the room with the viewer. The paintings are about bring the horses closer to the human.