Born in Edinburgh, Carolyn Burchell studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating with 1st class honours and went on to complete a post-graduate year.

In 1984 she was awarded the John Kinross Scholarship by Edinburgh’s Royal Scottish Academy and spent four months travelling throughout Tuscany and Northern Italy. She continues to take inspiration from travels in Europe and, in more recent years, exploring Scotland’s west coast and islands, as well as Edinburgh where she lives and works.

Carolyn creates an atmosphere of stillness, which intrigues and, at times, unsettles. She seeks to capture the transience of the light at a particular moment in time and is drawn to what she sees as ‘‘metaphysical properties in the landscape which seem to represent eternity living in the present, providing hope or sanctuary in an ever-changing world’’.

Carolyn is working on a series of small paintings for exhibition at Broughton Gallery in August 2007 with the theme of ‘‘Hidden Paths’’: images of pathways and corners within botanical and cultivated gardens, where strange shapes or silhouettes are suggested in the shadows, arousing curiosity as to what lies at the end of the path or beyond the trees.