Caroline Walker: Women's Work

Caroline Walker: Women’s Work follows the Internationally renowned Scottish artist over four years as Walker makes large-scale paintings representing the unseen, often undervalued aspects of women’s labour - from hospitals to hotels, nail bars to nursery settings. Walker’s paintings reveal the invisible labour that shapes women’s lives, from housework to caregiving to creative production.

Weaving together footage from Walker’s studio, her family life and interviews with the female subjects of her paintings, the film questions the role that art can play in depicting the social politics of reproductive labour, nurture and care for the next generation.

Blurring the line between the observer and those observed, Walker continually questions the act of representation through the prism of the female gaze. Following the artist as she prepares for solo exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, Wakefield and New York, the film intersperses footage of Walker with her family at home and painting in her studio, with recordings of the women pictured in these paintings, drawing out the points of synchronicity between her work and lived experience.

As the film follows Walker through pregnancy and the birth of her second child, it provides an exploration of the role of the ‘artist mother’, until recently viewed as taboo in contemporary art. Through privileged access to the artist’s life and work, the film reveals how motherhood has shaped Walker’s approach, while acknowledging the importance of her own mother, Janet, in inspiring and supporting her creativity.