Born: 1965 London, England
Other name/s: Daksha Caroline Jariwala
Biography
Painter, lecturer, exhibitions organiser and community artist, Caroline Jariwala was born to Indian parents in London, England in 1965. Her brother is the independent curator and art dealer, Kapil Jariwala, who arrived in England with his parents in 1962, three years before Caroline was born. Jariwala is a Christian who also nurtures her Gujarati Hindu heritage. She begun her education in the arts at Hounslow Borough College, Middlesex, where she completed a Foundation in Art & Design in 1985. She then enrolled in South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, earning a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 1988; this was followed by a Certificate in Education from Thames Polytechnic, London, in 1990. After obtaining her teaching qualification, Jariwala took part in various initiatives with schools, art galleries, and community spaces, working with a wide range of media and techniques, including illustration, batik, mural creation, and mosaic art, among others, and collaborating with storytellers, musicians, dancers and tile makers. From 2002-04, Jariwala studied for a National Vocational Qualification in Visual & Applied Arts Practice (Level 4) at South Birmingham College. Her interest in the intersection of arts and health led to additional study at Staffordshire University between 2006–07, where she focused on Developing Arts for Health. Her commitment to this interdisciplinary approach was further consolidated with a MA in Art, Health & Well-Being from Birmingham City University in 2012. Additionally, she expanded her skill set by studying RHS Level 2 Horticulture at Pershore College & Birmingham Botanical Gardens from 2012 to 2015. Within this wide range of qualifications, Jariwala's oeuvre primarily focusses on paintings and mosaics. Her vibrantly coloured paintings offer her personal take on Italian Renaissance art blended with elements of Hindu imagery. Specifically, she draws inspiration from the traditions, rituals, and customs of her Gujarati Indian background, with a particular focus on celebrating the female form within these cultural contexts. Her work has been shown at a number of museum and art institutions in the UK, including the Commonwealth Institute, London (1991); Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (1999) and the Barber Institute, University of Birmingham (2001).
As her multi-faceted career has evolved, Jariwala has become increasingly established as a mosaicist and runs a workshop, Mango Mosaics, located in Bearwood, West Midlands. She uses the picassiette method which entails repurposing broken and discarded crockery, transforming the pieces into artworks and giving items that would otherwise be in a landfill a new life. Jariwala is a mosaic artist thoroughly committed to sustainability by repurposing material typically seen as waste and by using inexpensive discontinued tiles. Both in the UK and abroad, she has worked on a number of commissions to create large-scale mosaics for various settings, both indoors and outdoors, such as the exterior mosaic for Park Hill Primary School in Moseley, Birmingham, where she was inspired by students’ drawings featuring global decorative patterns. In 2011 she collaborated on a commission with the University of Birmingham and South Birmingham NHS Trust. Using the Rangoli art form - a traditional Indian art form typically created directly on the floor with materials such as coloured rice, dry flour, coloured sand, and flower petals - she gathered insights from South Asian women about their attitudes towards Type 2 Diabetes. She also worked with New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, where she was commissioned to create three mosaic artworks with elderly patients in the Dementia Unit. The goal was to craft a collaborative art piece involving both staff and patients, intended for display in the ward garden. This project aimed to meliorate patient experiences by improving their environment. Subsequently, her project with TaMHS (Targeted Mental Health in School) Team at NHS Dudley took place in collaboration with praXis arts and health. This was a seven-day mural and mosaic activity at Ruffard Primary School, Stourbridge, titled It’s good to be you and which focused on pupils’ well-being and confidence, with the resulting artworks exhibited in the school’s outdoor classroom. in 2014 she participated in the 1st International Mosaic Intervention in Santiago, Chile, where she was among 80 international artists tasked with crafting a public art installation on the exterior wall of Puente Alto’s Town Hall. In the UK Jariwala has collaborated with charitable bodies such as Barnardos, Action for Children and the Asha Project. Her aim is to foster creativity in a welcoming and accessible manner to unlock new potentials that lead to self-confidence and personal growth.
Caroline Jariwala lives and works in Bearwood, Smethwick, England. In the UK public domain her work is held at the African and Asian Visual Arts Archive and Leicestershire County Council Artworks Collection.
Related books
- Eleanor Nesbitt, 'South Asian Christians in the UK', in Knut A. Jacobsen and Selva J. Raj, eds., South Asian Christian Diaspora: Invisible Diaspora in Europe and North America (Surrey: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 17-38
- David Buckman, 'Caroline Jariwala', in Artists in Britain since 1945, vol. 1 (Bristol: Art Dictionaries Ltd., 2006), p.823
- Ann Cullis, Mothers, exh. cat. (Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 1990)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Birmingham City University (student )
- British Association of Modern Mosaics (member )
- British Association of Mosaic Makers (member )
- Hounslow Borough College (student )
- Mango Mosaics (founder)
- Pershore College & Birmingham Botanical Gardens (student )
- South Birmingham College (student )
- South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education (student )
- Staffordshire University (student )
- Thames Polytechnic (student )
Related web links
- BBC: Turning Unwanted Objects into Mosaic Art
- Caroline's House by Tim Brinkhurst
- Heather Large, '"I feel inspired by it": Bearwood Artist Creates Magic with Mosaics', Shropshire Star, 17 February 2019
- Mango Mosaics
- Mango Mosaics: Youtube
- Mosaics Lab: Female Artists
- Saatchi Art
- South Asian Diaspora Artists Archive
- Sunil Midda, 'Mosaic Artist Inspires Black Country Children to Create Eye-catching Designs', Express & Star, 27 October 2023
Selected exhibitions
- Mosaics (group show), Coach House Gallery/Winterbourne Gardens, Birmingham (2016)
- Inside Out/Outside In (group show), Crypt Gallery, London (2015)
- Garden Goddess (group show), Corinium Museum, Cirencester (2014)
- 1st International Mosaic Intervention (group show), Puente Alto/Santiago (2014)
- Painted Prayers: Healing Waters (group show), Riverhouse, Walton on Thames (2008)
- Painted Prayers 20/21 (group show), Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe and touring (2005–07)
- Captured Moments (group show), Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham (2001)
- Leebas (group show), Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (1999)
- Making that Certain Type of Chapati, Bhownagree Gallery/Commonwealth Institute, London (1991)
