John O'Carroll (b. 1958, Cornwall) is a contemporary artist whose practice is rooted in place, time and material. He divides his year between a studio on the Cornish coast and a winter studio in Egypt's Western Desert. He draws inspiration from two landscapes shaped by elemental force.
For over thirty years, O'Carroll has explored the expressive potential of abstraction, developing a visual language informed by geology, archaeology and the enduring presence of ancient cultures. Working across painting, drawing and mixed media, he builds compositions that hold the rhythms, textures and spatial qualities of the natural world — surfaces that invite contemplation of humanity's relationship with landscape and deep time.
His work is held in private collections internationally and has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK and abroad.
Most recently, O'Carroll travelled to the ancient city of Hampi in southern India, where granite boulder fields, temple architecture and living cultural traditions have become the catalyst for a significant new body of work. This developing series extends his ongoing investigation into place, memory and sacred geography, opening a dialogue between the monumental landscapes of India, Cornwall and Egypt.
His work is held in private collections internationally and has been exhibited extensively throughout the UK and abroad. O'Carroll has exhibited worldwide, including solo exhibitions with Roger Katwijk Gallery in the Netherlands and at Pan Amsterdam, as well as exhibitions at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York and the Dutch-Flemish Institute in Cairo. He contributed to significant projects including the Colours of Oasis exhibition at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (2012), and the Anthropocene exhibition at Cornwall's Eden Project. In 2005, he participated in the Alexandria International Biennial Discovering the Book, and his work has also been shown at the British Embassy and the residence of the Dutch ambassador in Cairo. He is collected by both private and corporate patrons — including Akzo Nobel, AMC, VUmc, Loyens & Loeff, Accenture, and the NCM British Headquarters in Cardiff.
Studios: Cornwall, UK + Western Desert, Egypt
