Corinna Button's Artist Biography
Early Life, Education & Influences
Corinna Button is a British contemporary and figurative artist, based in London, whose artistic formation was shaped by a BA Honours degree in Fine Art at Leeds followed by postgraduate advanced printmaking studies in London at Croydon School of Art. Her work shows strong influence from German Expressionism, especially in printmaking, which left an indelible impression on her visual vocabulary.
Practice & Technique
Corinna Button’s practice is interdisciplinary: she works in painting, printmaking and sculpture, often combining media. Prints often act as the foundation for her canvases or works on paper, which are layered using collage, embossed paper, fabrics, and tools such as rollers, squeegees, scrapers. In her sculpture, particularly clay or stoneware, surfaces are imprinted with fabric patterns and marked with tooled stampings to evoke etched lines, textures and depth. Her method involves layering then scraping back, building then excavating—peeling back surfaces to reveal something hidden beneath.
Themes & Subject Matter
A central concern in Corinna’s art is the human figure—particularly female portraiture and archetypal figures—presented not as exact likenesses but as “prototypical” identities, partly exposed and partly concealed beneath the surface. Her inspiration is drawn from everyday life: social gatherings, images and snippets from social media, words from songs or poems. These quotidian experiences feed into her thematic exploration of identity, private vs public self, femininity, memory, and human relationships. Corinna aims “to bring something to light” through her work: to compel the viewer to look more closely, to uncover what is beneath what is seen.
Exhibitions, Collections & Recognition
Corinna Button is a respected member of the Royal Society of Painters & Printmakers (RE). She has exhibited widely—solo and group shows—both in the UK (including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, ING Discerning Eye at Mall Galleries) and internationally, in the USA, Asia and Europe. Her work is held in prominent public collections: Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Jiangsu Art Museum China, the BBC, University of Aberystwyth, among others. Awards include the Hector Purchase Prize, University of Aberystwyth Print Prize, live painting and publishing prizes. Corinna Button’s art is featured in publications such as Extraordinary Sketchbooks and Printmaker’s Secrets.