Caroline Said Lawrence


Caroline Said Lawrence grew up in East Africa, but later attended boarding school in Surrey, followed by St. Martin’s School of Art in London, fully intending to pursue a career in art.

However, she joined her family which had meanwhile moved to Bahrain and it was not until almost twenty years later that she was able to start her career as a professional artist.

Her first exhibition in Bahrain in 1992 was a great success, and subsequent shows proved to be equally rewarding.

The consensus of opinion among those who view her work is that it generates a satisfying sense of serenity, of contentment in seclusion, of reflection in stillness. Often viewers will remark that they feel a strong desire to be in the places she paints, an opinion which the artist shares.

Said Lawrence’s intensely vivid work often expresses the mood of her childhood memories in East Africa. Her recollections and the light and brilliant colours of the landscape of the exotic places she has lived in invariably surface time and again in her paintings.

In 2002 she settled in Cospicua, where her father’s family originated from, and once again Said Lawrence found herself immersed in a landscape full of vibrancy.

The Maltese landscape has inspired her to produce mixed-media paintings of its magnificent vistas, and a new series of paintings depicting the magical antiquity of the Three Cities.

Said Lawrence is experimental in her work and uses collage, acrylic, charcoal, graphite lead and paint in experimental ways. As a first, this globetrotter of a lifelong artist presents her bettija’rt.


“The Vino-Go-Round”

by Caroline Said Lawrence

The Maltese landscape is a constant source of inspiration for Caroline Said Lawrence to produce mixed-media paintings of this island’s magnificent vistas and the magical antiquity of the Three Cities in particular.

Although the artist is experimental in her work and occasionally delivers paintings on marine plywood, she never used a wine barrel as a canvas before. But, as a full-time self-employed artist, she has taken up the challenge with much gusto.

Someone seeing the finished piece commented to Caroline that it had something of a merry-go-round look to it. And, as the artist puts it: “It made me realise that, while designing the illustration, unconsciously I had been drawing upon a genre which I have always admired, namely sign-painting like the hand-painted signs seen at funfairs or the faded vintage ones which still adorn the facades of bars and shops in Valletta.”

The art of typography has always captivated Lawrence. The influence is apparent in her head-turning Vino-Go-Round, which is a spectacle of vibrant colours and images upon images. Lawrence has turned a bare barrique in a great barrel of fun, a visual feast that you can’t escape.

The ten artist finalists for this year’s 2019 Bettija’rt | wine.art.living are Joseph Barbara, Claire Attard Vella, David Xuereb, Caroline Said Lawrence, Carmel Bonello, Zack Ritchie, Francis Galea, Priscilla Gatt, Donald Camilleri and Sara Pace.

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