Caroline McQuarrie
Caroline McQuarrie is a contemporary artist and photographer. Born in 1975, she lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington.
Caroline is an interdisciplinary artist who has long been exploring personal and familial histories and the role that photography and textiles play in questioning these narratives. Curiosity about what is tangible and what is intangible, what traces remain, and whose lived experiences are valued enough to be recorded are strong drivers for her practice.
Caroline has spent several years photographing sites of 1800s mining industry: tunnels, tailings, inclines, paths, places of man-altered hills, rivers and bush. These are sites of former prosperity, of once bustling industries, and sites of change and trauma. Caroline often focuses her gaze on the historical and ecological legacies of the area around her family home in Te Tai Poutini, the West Coast of the South Island.
Works
Poplar Tree in Winter, in collaboration with Marci Tackett, 2025
Incline, 2024
Woven sampler 7, 2024
Woven sampler 4, 2024
Hills, 2024
Woven sampler 1, 2024
Woven sampler 10, 2024
Gullies, 2024
Johnny Walker Creek, Buller District (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Toa Rangatira…, 2022
Fool’s gold, 2017
Sluiced hills, 2016
Overgrown Hedge, Blue Spur, 2016
Baths, 2016
Incline, 2016
Broken Hills Water race track, 2016
Preaching Pit, Gwennap, Cornwall, UK, 2015
Flume Trestles, 2015
Homewardbounder #07, 2014
Former residence of Joseph Divis, photographer and miner (uninhabited), Waiuta,…, 2014
Interior ‘Gill Cottage’, Waiuta, December 2011, 2014
Homewardbounder #02, 2014
Steps from ‘Camp’ to mine workings at the head of…, 2014
Lyell Cemetery, June 2012, 2014
Former school building, now ‘Friends of the Hill’ museum, Denniston,…, 2014
Homewardbounder #05, 2014
Seat, 2009
Log, 2009
Woven sampler 2, 2024
Woven sampler 5, 2024
Woven sampler 9, 2024
Woven sampler 3, 2024
Woven sampler 12, 2024
Fence, 2024
Woven sampler 11, 2024
Bullock Creek, Buller District (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti…, 2022
Black sand, 2017
Tunnel Beach, 2016
Tailings, 2016
Water race, 2016
Tunnel, 2016
Mine Shaft, 2016
Blue Lake, 2016
Preaching Pit, Tregonning Hill, Cornwall, UK, 2015
Preaching Pit, St Newlyn East, Cornwall, UK, 2015
Homewardbounder #06, 2014
Remains of private residence, Denniston, January 2013, 2014
Homewardbounder #03, 2014
Homewardbounder #04, 2014
German Gully pack track, Goldsborough, tail race in middle of…, 2014
Homewardbounder #01, 2014
Interior of abandoned private residence, Big River, January 2013, 2014
Tunnel, 2013
Cushions, 2009
Foxglove, 2009
Install Images
Videos
Caroline McQuarrie, This Blasted Heath, exhibition video
Caroline McQuarrie, The New Sun, Exhibition video
Essays, Press and Interviews
How deep into the earth we sink, commissioned text
Caroline McQuarrie: Reviewed
Prospecting the past: Artist profile
Dear Dave
Photography and suspicion
A show for the public
Something old, something new: Caroline McQuarrie’s Reasons for Silence
The New Sun: new photographic and textile work by Caroline McQuarrie
Caroline McQuarrie