The Optimists

Our new Stables Café exhibition... The Optimists

Until February 2027, Oxfordshire artists Caroline Parkes and MM Plumm present two distinctive bodies of work in a conversation about colour, character and connection.

The Optimists explores human stories and the ways in which experience transforms expression, all told through vivid colour.

The exhibition has strong roots in Woodstock. Caroline and American-born MM met through the Artists in Woodstock community, and their long walks around Blenheim became conversations about colour, creativity and what painting meant to them. Those conversations formed the basis of this exhibition.

At its heart is one shared idea: creativity as forward motion, a way of making meaning from experience, finding beauty in difficulty and choosing curiosity over certainty.