2021 Online Course Info

Jo Ball | joball.info
Jo Ball is an artist and gardener based in Bristol. Her practice has two strands – a studio-based activity creating objects and prints and a socially-engaged approach working with people involving plants, growing and activities to bring people together. Working with plants often feeds into Jo’s practice through the use of natural objects or by using growing as a way to connect people to each other and the places around them. Making and materials are central to Jo’s work and her ideas are led by a deep curiosity for the outside world and a fascination for the workings of the human brain. Jo’s practice explores ideas of connection, fragility and repair – often using delicate materials and creating finely balanced compositions.

Lucy Barker | www.lucy-barker.co.uk
Lucy Barker’s practice looks at the environment, movement and neurology, using her practice to build an intimate connection between each. The act of physical walking, creating routes and pathways, helps to form neural networks through which she gains insight into her own neurodivergent mind. Meanwhile music and dance offer escapism – a gateway to bypass the real world and enter into another dimension. In her current research project, Lucy is considering scientific thinking from both the cognitive neurosciences and social sciences, where ideas of embodied cognition can offer valuable insights into the interdependent relationship between mind, body and environment. Lucy Barker is an interdisciplinary artist striving to offer fresh perspectives that inspire audiences and participants to make positive personal and social change.

Adele Christensen | www.adelechristensenglass.com
Adele Christensen’s concepts are based on ephemeral and transitional moments in nature, the beauty and illusionary qualities it presents. Adele’s fascination with this is rooted in her childhood experiences, play and observations of these effects. She interprets research through the medium of glass, using direct casting and painterly techniques with enamel and lustre to create various surface qualities, structure, pattern and colour. Adele incorporates the light shadows and reflections as a visual glue that creates the form often accentuated by elemental change.

Hayley Williams-Hindle | www.alittlebitdistracted.com
Hayley Hindle develops multi-sensory and interactive artworks that are often research based or have elements of data visualisation within them. The works challenge a conventional world view of human cognitive experience. Hayley’s approach is informed by a neurodiversity perspective, that invites reflection and celebration of different cognitive and cultural understandings of the world and our ways of interacting with it and with each other.

Paul James | www.pauljamesworkshop.com
A strong and varied narrative and bold use of form and colour is always present in Paul James’ work, reflecting his varied interests – often taking influence from where science, philosophy and spirituality meet. A minimalist approach is then taken to preserve the simplicity and essence of the idea. Paul’s varied creative background (artist & designer) means he is able to work with various mediums to find the most suitable approach to express his ideas. This maintains an ethos to always be learning, to further my creative freedom and ultimately to inspire and be inspired.

Anno Mitchell | www.annomitchell.com
Anno Mitchell is an artist primarily working in drawing and installation. She is currently working on a series of inter-related projects about shipwreck, breaking and reforming. Anno has a multi-disciplinary approach, using new materials and processes finding a rhythm between drawing, writing and 3D work in and with space, allowing her to explore the thematic and material production of the artworks. ‘Shipwreck’ considers questions surrounding; what it is to be wrecked, what it is to salvage something? How can shipwreck be used as a kind of narrative trapdoor into new worlds?

Melissa Pierce Murray | www.melissapmurray.com
Melissa Pierce Murray‘s works arise from an interest in engagement and interactions, how specific objects and materials can facilitate and deepen awareness of ourselves and our world. Melissa’s ideas are motivated by studies in literature and physics, while her sensitivity to place and material arises from her roots in the Colorado mountains. Working across several universities, Melissa delivers interdisciplinary workshops and facilitates interactions between scientists and artists.

Tania Salha | www.taniasalha.com
Tania Salha’s practice is an investigation of personal thoughts and views. While some simply practice introspection, others are ignited by the constant shifting parameters of moral and ethical behaviour. Through a constant shift between painting, film, sculpture and installation, she investigates a thought from different perspectives. In this interdisciplinary practice, Tania finds her joy of playing, experimentation and connecting thoughts at a deeper level.

Steph Shipley | www.stephyshipley.co.uk
Steph Shipley’s practice considers those places that hold a personal or collective memory or intrigue or attachment and those that are familiar but estranged or transitory. She is interested in what remains and calls her back, the palimpsest of present and missing spaces, and how those encounters are felt and expressed through still and moving image, sound and print-making. Layers and fragments are gathered from archives, texts and sound, and re-arranged to convey, by association, another place or space.

Stefanie Trow | www.stefanietrow.com
Stefanie Trow’s work centres on the human gaze – her unique compositions leave us to question what cannot be seen or what exists outside the framework. Each work is inspired from an assortment of images and sketches – found and from life -becoming starting points for Trow’s emotive paintings. The work considers themes of memory, movement, obstruction and colour meaning. Intense bold colours are pulled and scraped across the canvas, creating an expressive language of their own. Trow’s expressive brushwork gives way to movement. The paint just about holds onto the image, creating an ebb and flow of realism, taken away from us sometimes by abstraction. Like trying to grasp a memory, parts of the paintings remain vivid, whilst others drip and slide away from us, pooling into a new reality, ready for the viewer to unearth.

Alan Ward | www.alanjward.co.uk
Alan Ward’s practice uses photography as a conduit to respond to the ideas of place, loss and heritage in our surroundings. This has also led to developing commissions and projects through other mediums including: video, text and public art. Much of his work is informed by research and engagement, whether that is historical or community led. Archives, be these personal or institutional, have become a significant reference point for exploration and reflection on ideas around a collective cultural heritage. He enjoys making quirky discoveries, connections and combining off-kilter observations to consider alternative readings and perspectives on our surroundings. Ward is interested in often overlooked details, the infra-ordinary of our geographies. His photographic work has been described as ‘a poetic and quiet consideration of our place in that landscape’. However, he is equally at home combining text and image within outcomes, an aspect of his typographic design background that offers extra value.

Lucy Wright | www.artistic-researcher.co.uk
With tongue in cheek, Lucy Wright calls herself a contemporary folk artist. Folk is a slippery and divisive term with some uncomfortable associations, however we only need look at the UK Brexit vote and rise of populism worldwide to see how customs and traditions continue to inform our sense of self and other, often with agonistic consequences. Lucy’s practice is driven by the conviction that now more than ever, we need to pay attention to the things people make, do and think for themselves— and it is this kind of folk, and this kind of art that informs her work. Some of Lucy’s projects interrogate the problematic relationships between folk, nationalism and colonialism. Others deal with the under-representation of women, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities in the existing canon of English folk arts and the need for new, more inclusive traditions for our divided society.