Carol Schlosar

How did the natural process of a woman aging—a testament to her endurance, experience and strength—become one of society’s greatest stigmas?

For the past ten years, the body of work, Pages from the Book of Women, has challenged the stereotypes that diminish older women and celebrated how we answer back. The women portrayed and the community contributors are all over 60; their faces, words and humour give this inquiry its substance. And as an older woman herself, Carol brings feminist curiosity, lived experience and a taste for irreverence.

Through painting, printmaking and found objects, Carol explores the tension between older women’s lives and the cultural stereotypes imposed on them. Large-scale portraits of artists in their 80s give their continuing creative lives a commanding physical presence. Their scale asks viewers to pause, look closely and consider whose lives receive attention and whose are routinely overlooked.

No One’s Going Quietly transforms “found” purses into little black accessories of wearable rebellion. Screen-printed with women’s street-level commentary alongside words from poets, philosophers and feminists, these familiar objects become unexpected platforms for opinions.

Aging has given Carol more material, sharper questions and fewer reasons to hold her tongue. Her work draws on the tension between how society sees older women and how older women see themselves — in all their complexity, authority and audacity. Each work contributes another page to the ever-evolving Book of Women, making one thing increasingly clear: no one’s going quietly.

Carol Schlosar is an artist, teacher and musician rooted in Sicamous, British Columbia. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Thompson Rivers University as a decidedly mature student and continues her independent study with Scholars Without Institutions, a six-artist collective grounded in research, exchange and creative inquiry. Her practice spans painting, sculpture, printmaking and installation.

Schlosar explores the shifting identity politics of older women, the consensus and conflict of personal space, and women’s responses to an increasingly threatened natural world. Her ongoing body of work, Pages from the Book of Women, challenges cultural expectations that diminish women as they age. Drawing on lived experience and layered symbolism, she brings together personal narrative, social commentary and visual disruption. Playfulness and critique work together as her subjects claim visibility, power and the upper hand.

Her practice continues to develops through sustained research, experimentation and many, many conversations with older women. Their participation brings individual experiences and voices into an inquiry that continues to evolve.

Schlosar’s solo and collaborative work has been exhibited across British Columbia. In 2025, her painting Vivian Lindoe — Fierce Female Artist was selected as a finalist for the Salt Spring National Art Prize, continuing her exploration of warrior women and their refusal of invisibility.