Australian visual artist Carol Archer lives on Worimi land near Bulahdelah in the Myall Lakes region of N.S.W. Spanning drawing, painting and printmaking, her practice explores her relationship with trees and forests. Such places are especially precious for an artist who spent many years based in the hyper-urban city of Hong Kong.

Archer’s education includes a Bachelor’s degree (Fine Arts and Philosophy) and a secondary art teaching diploma (Sydney University), a painting diploma (Canberra School of Art), a Masters degree (University of Western Sydney) and a doctorate on contemporary painting and feminist aesthetics (Hong Kong University). These formal studies have been complemented by courses in printmaking and ink painting (in Japan and Australia).

Archer’s most recent solo exhibitions are thicket (Shop Gallery Glebe, 2024), standing still the trees (Shop Gallery Glebe, 2021) and Drawing Breath/ Desenhar. Respirar (Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon, 2017). Marking the culmination of a long running collaborative art project, Postcards between Friends was shown at Leung Fong Oi Wan Gallery (Lingnan University) and K11 Art Cabinets in Hong Kong (2014-15).

Project grants have been awarded the artist by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2000, 2001, 2003, 2010) and the Macao Foundation (2017). Archer’s work has been acquired by numerous private collectors as well as by Artbank, Bundanon Trust, New England Regional Art Museum, and Hong Kong Trade Office in Geneva.

Archer worked as an art educator and researcher. Her most recent full-time teaching position was as an Assistant Professor in the Visual Studies Department at Lingnan University, Hong Kong (2008 -15). She has worked as a teacher of art history, theory and practice in schools and universities in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau and published her research in journals such as International Journal of Art and Design Education, the British Journal of Aesthetics and Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. Her most recent publication is her essay “The Ambivalent Paintings of Judy Watson” which was selected for inclusion in Anne Marsh’s Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia (2021).