Carry Akroyd SWLA

Carry Akroyd (b. 1953) lives in rural Northamptonshire, a few miles from where she grew up, but her interest in landscape extends across the British Isles, where the birds she notices often fly into her landscape images.

A painter-printmaker, Carry’s images examine the effect of humans on landscape and wildlife, though her representations of contemporary agriculture really concentrate on colour, shape and composition. Mostly painting in watercolour or acrylic on paper, her subject matter is a constant, but her attitude to each medium is restless. Sometimes its oils. Recently she has used both soft and oil pastel. Other times a printmaking base combines with paint and crayon for mixed media on paper.

Exhibiting regularly at a few provincial galleries, she is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and shows with them in London each year. Her work is in various collections: Northampton Museum and Art Gallery; The Towner Art Gallery; Rye Art Gallery; Paintings in Hospitals; Jesus College, Cambridge; Oundle School; Edith Cavell Hospital. She created a touring show to promote the poetry of John Clare, which has visited numerous venues over the last 14 years.

The range of Carry’s work is reproduced in her own books: ‘natures powers & spells, Landscape Change, John Clare and Me’, and “Found in the Fields”. Her most recent book, with John McEwen, is “Swoop, Sing, Perch, Paddle”, a compilation of illustrations made for the Bird of the Month column in The Oldie magazine, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Illustrative Books Prize 2025.

Her work has been used on various book covers, and she has illustrated three books of John Clare’s poetry. For a decade she was President of the John Clare Society.