About

Carol Aslin’s journey to becoming an artist has been shaped by an unconventional life—one defined by instinct, risk, and a continual search for something deeper.

Sent to boarding school in South Africa from Zambia at a young age, she struggled within traditional systems and left school early, driven by a restless and questioning nature. What followed was a brief but intense period of movement and exploration that took her through London, America, and Europe, and into experiences that were at times unpredictable, precarious, and vividly alive. These formative experiences, at once wild and liberating, instilled a lasting sense of independence and inner freedom that continues to underpin her work.

Her path eventually led her into the film world in South Africa, at a time when the industry was still in its formative years—an exciting and highly creative period. Working with a number of emerging and later well-known directors and production companies, she became immersed in a world of visual storytelling and collaboration that would leave a lasting impression on her work. She later returned to London and went on to New York, where she studied drawing and lithography at the Art Students League of New York and interior design at Parsons School of Design. While in New York she started a decorative painting business.

It was only later, after moving to Zambia with her husband Nick and spending four years living in the bush, that painting became central to her life. Immersed in nature and removed from the urgency of survival, she found both the space and the necessity to begin. This marked a quiet but decisive turning point—where art shifted from something peripheral into something essential.

Now based in Lusaka, Aslin divides her time between Zambia and London. Her work continues to evolve through this movement between worlds—between the raw presence of the natural landscape and the cultural energy of the city. Her practice moves fluidly across painting, etching, monoprint, and resin, each medium opening into the next. More recently, she has begun working in sculpture, a new and deeply engaging direction in her practice, where her interest in form, material, and presence is finding fresh expression. Alongside this, a period of study and practice in psychology has brought a deeper awareness of the emotional and psychological landscapes that shape human experience—something that now sits quietly beneath the surface of her work. This ongoing evolution reflects a continued commitment to exploration and a willingness to keep moving into the unknown.

Underlying it all is a strong, intuitive connection to nature—not only as subject, but as a living presence. Years spent close to the natural world have deepened her sense of connection to something both ancient and enduring. For Aslin, nature holds memory, presence, spirituality and a sense of continuity—where the visible and invisible exist side by side.

Her life—unconventional, at times risky, and often unpredictable—has been guided by an enduring instinct to explore, to question, and to create.

Art, for her, is not a fixed destination, but a way of finding her way through the world.