This collection of essays and curatorial texts offers critical reflections on the themes of identity, belonging, materiality, and memory explored through Anthony Carey’s visual practice. Written by independent curators, arts academics, and the artist himself, these texts provide layered insight into both individual works and broader conceptual frameworks.
By Patricia Moriarty
Independent Art Curator
A reflective exploration of the emotional and psychological dimensions of Anthony Carey’s Belonging series. Moriarty draws on Jungian archetypes and themes of grief, memory, and restoration to frame the artist’s search for shared meaning through material process.
By Katrina Whitehead
BA (Hons), MA, PGCE, FHEA, LBIPP. Lecturer and Visual Arts Educator
This essay offers a curatorial lens on Carey’s evolving practice, highlighting the artist’s engagement with identity, professional integrity, and audience connection. Whitehead draws on Jungian theory and artistic process, situating the exhibition within a broader critical and ethical context.
By Anthony Carey
Artist Statement and Process Reflection
A personal account of working with archetypes such as the Wanderer, the Shadow, and the Threshold Guardian. Carey explores how figures emerge through layers, erasures, and tactile resistance, offering insight into the intuitive, unpredictable nature of making.
Belonging
BY PATRICIA MORIARTY
The urge to belong, to find one’s place in the world, to comfortably fit in one’s own skin is a shared human need. It’s what drives us to find our tribe, to navigate our life’s journey, to find our purpose and fulfil our destiny. It’s what binds us together and what drives us apart. Anthony Carey’s body of work Belonging explores this common ground, it searches out spaces where we can share our experiences of what it means to be part of a larger whole while maintaining the uniqueness of our selves. This is what motivates Carey to keep painting, the hope that his work will resonate with the viewer and that in this shared recognition a meaningful dialogue, indeed a kind of shared belonging will take place.
By his own admission his process could be seen to be haphazard in its approach and execution. His practice is almost entirely driven by instinct and a visceral relationship with materials. “There’s always a moment where I think I’ve wrecked it,” Carey admits. “But that’s usually when it gets interesting.” His work is partly sculptural layering different media such as adhesive, plaster, paint and then carving the layers back using a variety of tools. He will often leave a piece and then come back to it weeks later. This approach echoes his search for an image to emerge almost by itself from the canvas. Often these layers will incorporate figures oscillating into being as if from fleeting memories of older encounters. As the nature of memory is one of the main themes of his work he excavates the archaeology of his emotions in an effort to find some consistency of being. Much of this effort is to assuage loss, grief and feelings of displacement within the context and content of his life experience.
The influence of Carl Jung and his theory of universal archetypes is woven through the fabric of Belonging. As Carey’s practice developed over time he recognised recurring motifs and themes in his work. Much of his output is created in an effort to come to terms with loss and grief and the constant urge to reclaim his place in his life. Jung proposed that archetypes are symbols and motifs that connect human experiences across cultures and time.
These archetypes seem to offer Carey not only a visual language but a symbolic vocabulary that resonates with what he is trying to achieve through his work. “I’m not thinking about archetypes when I paint,” he says. “I just know when something feels right—when it has that presence. I’m trying to find something I didn’t know was there.” His use of these archetypes is not in any way heavy handed or literal rather they exist as portals or guides to lost memories and emotions. They also operate as types of connectors between Carey and his audience providing a space where experiences can be shared. There is a kind of restorative communication, a reciprocate exchange without language. It’s as though these figures exist just outside of our consciousness while fully inhabiting it.
In the works The Ancestors, Under a Blood Red Sky we encounter archetypes such as the Shadow. In Beyond the Crossroads we behold the Self and the Great Mother. Lost in Translation and Red Embrace in Yellow Hues of Reflection introduce us to the Wanderer and the Threshold Guardian. But as Carey states “this psychological dimension enhances the emotional weight of the surfaces without needing deep theory”.
Many artists mine their lives for the subject matter and imagery of their art. Anthony Carey uses his art as a way to reconcile grief and loss as a means of going forward. The nature of his journey is one of searching for a direction and he invites us to join him on this quest. His process is as exploratory as this search for a place of meaning and resolution.
“We don’t experience life in complete narratives. Memory comes in flashes. Identity shifts over time. Belonging isn’t always a fixed place - it can be a state of reaching, of searching. That’s what I’m trying to hold space for in these paintings.”
Introduction
by Katrina Whitehead
In Belonging: A Quest for Home, Anthony Carey invites us on a deeply personal and resonant journey—one that explores identity, ancestry, emotional memory, and our innate longing for a sense of place. This exhibition presents more than a collection of paintings; it is the culmination of a profound process of self-discovery, research, and reflection. Through layers of paint and meaning, Carey's work asks timely questions: Where do we come from? What connects us? How do we visually translate the feeling of belonging?
Throughout his creative journey, Anthony has approached his practice with remarkable dedication and a rigorous yet intuitive methodology. His research into Jungian archetypes, haptic perception, and the emotional resonance of materials reveals a mature and evolving artistic voice—one that seeks not only to express but to connect.
Themes of displacement, familial legacy, and cultural identity echo powerfully through his canvases, particularly in works like Ancestors, a painting steeped in both personal narrative and symbolic resonance. From his carefully considered sketchbooks to the construction of a professional code of conduct and commitment to ethical, sustainable practices in the studio, Anthony’s practice is as reflective as it is expressive. His attention to detail—whether through curatorial choices, material experimentation, or audience engagement—demonstrates a keen awareness of how art lives both in the studio and in the world.
The evolution of his exhibitions, including the bold visual strategies seen in the recent joint show Between the Shores, shows a confident handling of curation and presentation. His willingness to collaborate, while also recognising the potential strengths of solo work, reflects an artist in tune with both creative vision and practical execution. The thoughtful use of colour and spatial dynamics—such as the striking red-on-red display—indicates a growing sophistication in how he stages emotional impact within a gallery context.
Anthony’s commitment to professional growth is equally visible in his embrace of digital media, self-assessment, and audience feedback. Whether refining his video documentation or considering the impact of framing decisions, he remains open to critique and innovation.
His smaller works, once described playfully, are now rightly positioned as intimate yet equally powerful explorations of the same deep themes as his larger pieces. Underlying all of this is a rare honesty—a willingness to share not just the outcomes, but the uncertainties, the questions, and the emotional terrain of making art. In this way, Anthony’s work does more than fill a gallery space; it resonates with the viewer, calling forth reflection on our own stories, homes, and inheritances.
It has been a pleasure to witness Anthony’s development throughout this journey. His work embodies a powerful intersection of the personal and the universal. Belonging: A Quest for Home is a testament to what happens when an artist brings theory, memory, and material together with both courage and care.
—Katrina Whitehead, BA (Hons.) MA, PGCE, FHEA, LBIPP
PROCESS REFLECTION
BY ANTHONY CAREY
Looking back, I can see how my process has shifted—not because I set out to change it, but because the materials and emotions led me somewhere else. This is a reflection on how I work, and how my painting has become a way to hold space for what I can’t always explain.I don’t see my work as directly influenced by any particular movement or by ‘isms., However, I feel aligned with artists who explore fragmentation, instability, and the shifting nature of identity through material and process. Artists like Nathan Oliveira, Albert Oehlen, Manuel Neri, Leonora Carrington, and Jack B. Yeats resonate with me—not because I consciously reference them, but because their approaches engage with similar questions.
Yeats’ paintings are charged with movement, texture, and emotion. His use of heavy impasto and gestural brushwork captures figures that feel fleeting, almost half-formed as if emerging from the very act of painting itself. That kind of material engagement carries weight, where the surface resists smooth resolution—is something I relate to in my own work.
Oliveira’s spectral figures, often dissolving into their surroundings, mirror my interest in forms that emerge and recede, shaped as much by erasure as by mark-making. His paintings don’t present fixed identities but explore the act of becoming, which is something I deeply feel in my own process.
Oehlen’s willingness to disrupt the surface resonates as well. His work collapses different styles into a single space, allowing contradictions to exist. I relate to that sense of tension—where abstraction and figuration push against each other, never settling into one or the other. If a painting starts to feel too defined, I’ll pull it back, scrape it away, and introduce something that complicates its clarity.
Neri’s sculptural approach—where figures emerge from rough, textured material aligns with my interest in plaster, industrial adhesives, and layered surfaces. I work with materials that resist control, that fracture, crack, and expose what lies beneath. These materials hold memory in a way that paint alone cannot—they record time, decisions, and revisions within the work itself.
While Carrington’s surrealism differs significantly from mine, I connect with how she engages myth, transformation, and liminality. Her figures often exist in states of flux—half-human, half-animal, neither here nor there—suggesting identities that refuse to be pinned down. That aligns with my approach, where figures do not act as portraits but as impressions of something shifting, something unresolved.
What links these artists is not a style but a shared understanding of the process as meaning—where materiality, revision, and unpredictability are not obstacles but essential to the work. That’s the space I work within too, where nothing is fixed, a painting carries its own history of change, and meaning remains open, shifting with each encounter.
This isn’t just about visual style; it’s about how the process becomes content. I work with materials that resist control, that crack, fracture, and expose what lies beneath. The materials don’t always behave. I don’t fight that—I use it. A figure might emerge in one layer and vanish under the next. Some paintings stay in the studio for weeks before I know what to do with them. I hang them on the wall and watch how they change in the light. Eventually, something shifts—a crack appears in the right place, or a texture starts to suggest a form. That’s when the next mark happens.
I’ve also spent much time thinking about Jungian archetypes—not as fixed templates but as psychological patterns that surface through making. The Wanderer, the Threshold Guardian, the Shadow aren’t figures I paint but ideas I work through unconsciously. In Threshold of Adventure (2024), a solitary figure appears in the centre of a dark vertical band, flanked by opposing fields of colour. It’s not a portrait of a Wanderer, but it holds that energy. It’s about transition, uncertainty and a confrontation with the unknown. Jung saw the Wanderer as the archetype of movement, of the individual stepping away from the known toward transformation (Jung, 1959, CW9ii, ¶85). That describes not just the figure in the painting but the act of making the painting.
A lone figure stands in a field of red in Beyond the Crossroads. The composition suggests an encounter with something unresolved. The cross, raised from the surface, is both a marker and a question. The broken circle surrounding the cross suggests something broken—perhaps faith, tradition, or belonging itself, no longer whole, yet still present. What does it mean to stand at a threshold? What is carried forward, and what is left behind? The painting does not offer answers. Instead, it invites the viewer to inhabit that uncertainty, to consider their own crossroads, their own turning points.
Plaster plays a specific role in this. It dries quickly and cracks under pressure. I use it because it pushes back. It forces decisions. If I scrape it before it sets, it peels away. If I leave it too long, it hardens and resists. That unpredictability is essential—a physical metaphor for the instability of memory or identity. I often don’t know what a painting is about until weeks later when a shape re-emerges through those cracks.
What links all of this is fragmentation as a kind of truth. We don’t experience life in complete narratives. Memory comes in flashes. Identity shifts over time. Belonging isn’t always a fixed place—it can be a state of reaching, of searching. That’s what I’m trying to hold space for in these paintings.
I’ve had long periods of dislocation and loss, and those experiences feed the work—not directly, but through texture, space, and form. Painting, and the research that runs alongside it, has become a way to stay in motion—to work through grief, to give shape to that sense of unmooring. I know I’m not alone in these emotions. That’s part of what keeps me painting: the hope that others might recognise something of their own experience in the work. For me, it’s a way of saying that even here, in uncertainty, something meaningful can still emerge. In that sense, my work aligns with those who use material as metaphor, who accept that meaning isn’t something applied to the surface of a painting but something that surfaces from within it.
