Selected works available from Oil Art Advisory

Born in Cardiff, Wales, Caroline Slater demonstrated artistic talent from an early age. She later earned a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, where her work began to attract attention through exhibitions and private commissions. During the 1980s she also worked as a freelance magazine illustrator, producing artwork for the fashion and celebrity publication Despatch and the niche fashion and art magazine Avantgarde.

Further study in Paris exposed Slater to a diverse creative environment that included dancers, musicians, puppeteers and visual artists. While there she was invited to work within the dance studios of the Paris Opera House, where she designed and constructed large hand-made puppet costumes and created ten-foot hanging canvases depicting ballet dancers. She later studied music and rhythm at the Academy of Cultural Education in Remscheid, Germany, experiences that continue to influence the sense of movement and theatricality within her paintings.

Her work has also reached international audiences. Slater was commissioned by an independent film producer in Los Angeles to create a series of large figurative paintings that remain privately displayed in his Art Deco residence. She has exhibited in Florence, Italy, by invitation, and throughout the United Kingdom, with international travel continuing to inform and expand her creative perspective. Time spent working in Miami introduced further eclectic influences that remain visible in her evolving style.

Slater draws inspiration from a wide range of art historical references. Among them are the Florentine masters of the fifteenth century—including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo—as well as twentieth-century Italian realist Pietro Annigoni. She also admires the stylised elegance of Tamara de Lempicka, whose Art Deco portraits similarly explore identity, form and presence.

Today, working from her Somerset studio, Slater continues to produce expressive paintings characterised by sweeping lines, provocative shapes, muted tonal palettes and suggestive faces that seem to drift between clarity and abstraction. Music often forms the backdrop to her creative process, influencing the rhythm and energy of her compositions.

Her paintings explore the space between who we are and who we might become, presenting bold interpretations of male, female and androgynous identity. Through layered colour, cinematic tones and dynamic forms, Slater’s work celebrates the enduring power of the human figure while inviting viewers to reflect on the emotional and psychological dimensions beneath the surface.