Paula Carnell - CV 2008
Born in Weymouth, Dorset in 1968, Paula showed the desire to be an artist from an early age. In 1976 her family moved to Yetminster near Sherborne, Dorset. Under excellent tuition from Sue Pemble in Lord Digby’s Grammar school, Paula went on to a two year Foundation Studies OND in Yeovil, Somerset. During this time she held two exhibitions, the first of which was a sell out. Feeling the need to study art in a more commercial than fine art base, she went on to Suffolk College where she studied Illustration, graphics and animation. During her time in East Anglia, Paula was introduced to silk painting and began demonstrating for ‘Javana’ at various retail and trade art events. Paula left college in 1989 to pursue her career as an artist. This took her firstly to New York working on commissions and teaching primary aged students private art classes. On her return to the UK, Paula won a marketing grant from ‘The Prince’s Youth Business Trust’ and set up her business ‘Possi’. In1991, her first solo show in London, at St Martin in the Fields, was opened by Sir Angus Ogilvy and previewed her collection of paintings illustrating Coleridge’s "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". This was later published in hard back. During this time Paula met and married Simon Kenevan whom she then taught to paint and who now works successfully in the USA.
Between 1990 and 1995 Paula, under the name of ‘Possi’, published her own and other artists work as greeting cards, which were sold in several hundred outlets in the UK, including Fortnum and Mason’s and Liberty’s. She also exported to eleven countries worldwide, including the USA, Japan, most of Europe and Australia.
In 1995, The New York Graphic Society published four of her images as open edition prints. Many other images were licensed to various card and tableware companies.
Paula also regularly demonstrated silk painting for major companies in the silk painting and art world, including George Weil and Sons, Edding, UK, Raphael, The ‘Artists and Illustrators Show’ and ‘Art in Action’, as well as regional art groups.
In 1995, Paula purchased a redundant rope factory in Castle Cary, Somerset, which she converted into an Art Gallery, design led shop and artists’ workshops. Between 1995 and 2004 internationally acclaimed artists including Mackenzie Thorpe, Rosemary Trestini, Paul Karslake, Jenni Tuffs and Philip Meninsky exhibited successfully at her gallery gaining a wide reputation for a varied and a consistently high standard of contemporary art.
Since 2004, after selling the Ropewalk Gallery and workshops, Paula has concentrated on her solo career as an artist.
Travel is an important influence in her work and paintings have been inspired by travels in Peru, Africa, Hawaii and the United States, where her work is regularly exhibited.
Still working with her chosen medium of Acrylic on Silk, Paula is best known for her floral studies, but also paints landscapes and portraits. Paula lives in Castle Cary, Somerset, with Husband Greg and her two sons, Finnian and Caspar.