Around 1994, Rhodes began to develop her individualistic body of paintings that explore the encroachment of human activity upon natural landscapes. These paintings depict the marginal areas in a landscape, that sit in between city and countryside, where the industrial estates, reservoirs and airports lie. These are the sort of areas that are rarely an intended destination (or the subject of painting) but rather a place travelled through, which Rhodes referred to as ‘hidden areas’ or ‘left-over land’. The landscapes are often painted from an aerial point of view, pieced together from photographs, urban plans and geographical maps, as well as being partially invented. Trees and Works depicts a dense forest crossed by a network roads that lead to and from a factory or chemical plant of some sort sort. There is discomfort in the contrast of what might be historic, natural woodland and what we can assume to be a harmful, polluting man-made site at its core.

Carol Rhodes, 1959-2018

Carol Rhodes was born in Edinburgh but grew up in Serampore, India, before returning to the UK as an adolescent. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1977 to 1982 but on graduation she set aside her artistic career to work in the field of social and political activism, before becoming involved with Transmission Gallery and the grassroots artistic circles it was central to. Rhodes resumed painting in the 1990s, working in a studio at Tramway whilst teaching at GSA. It was in this studio that Rhodes began to develop her individualistic body of paintings that explore the encroachment of human activity upon natural landscapes, depicting what the late art critic Tom Lubbock described as 'borderlands, somewhere on the edge of recognition’.

Rhodes' first solo museum exhibition was held in 2008 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, having become recognised as one of the leading artists of her generation. Her work was collected by the Tate, Arts Council England, the British Council and the Yale Center for British Art among other institutions, whilst represented by Andrew Mummery at Mummery & Schnelle. In 2013 Rhodes was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, from which she sadly passed away five years later at the age of 59.