West Midlands Open 2022 | The New Art Gallery Walsall

Ruth Radcliffe — Painted Ladies

Mixed Media

Ruth Radcliffe — Painted Ladies

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
The collage has been inspired by Carol Rama and my own childhood drawings. It is a spontaneous work that came about through experimenting with layering and repetitive images. The linear drawings focus on the female form with a particular emphasis on their gaze.
Date:
21/06/2020
Medium:
Pen and ink on tissue paper
Category:
Mixed Media
https://www.instagram.com@ruthyradcliffe

Ruth Spencer — Kimono

Ruth Spencer — Kimono

Painting

Ruth Spencer — Kimono

Painting

Artwork description:
In the summer of 2021, when we were allowed to meet up in groups with family and friends I went on holiday to the seaside . I was very struck by the brilliantly striped and coloured windbreaks and parasols. which seemed like a great burst of colour after the constraints of lockdown. It was also very interesting how people on the beach recreated domestic spaces on the beach, filled with chairs, tables, ice boxes , towels, mats and hats. It seemed even when we were 'let out' we had to retain a safe domestic space . I wanted to express both the exuberance of the colour and light and also the domesticity of the created spaces.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil paint on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
http://www.ruthspencer.co.uk

Ruth Spencer — Parasol

Ruth Spencer — Parasol

Painting

Ruth Spencer — Parasol

Painting

Artwork description:
In the summer of 2021, when we were allowed to meet up in groups with family and friends I went on holiday to the seaside . I was very struck by the brilliantly striped and coloured windbreak and parasols. which seemed like a great burst of colour after the constraints of lockdown. It was also very interesting how people on the beach recreated domestic spaces on the beach, filled with chairs, tables, ice boxes , towels, mats and hats. It seemed even when we were 'let out' we had to retain a safe domestic space . I wanted to express both the exuberance of the colour and light and also the domesticity of the created spaces.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
http://www.ruthspencer.co.uk

Saleem Ayub — Acceptance

Saleem Ayub — Acceptance

Painting

Saleem Ayub — Acceptance

Painting

Artwork description:
It depicts the most famous artwork with a draped head. Based on the veil ban in France-the artwork is still recognisable by the pose and beautifully shaped hand that is synonymous with the painting. The face remains hidden-but we are still aware of the smile.
Date:
25th January 2020
Medium:
Oil on stretched canvas
Category:
Painting

Saleem Ayub — Fashionata

Saleem Ayub — Fashionata

Painting

Saleem Ayub — Fashionata

Painting

Artwork description:
This work is about being fashion conscious and decorating oneself with garments, objects, etc. It also takes on a sculptural element signifying self importance and exhibitionist elements
Date:
30th July 2020
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Category:
Painting

Sally Bailey — w/hole

Sally Bailey — w/hole

Painting

Sally Bailey — w/hole

Painting

Artwork description:
I consider that my paintings are created and exist within a liminal space - an imagined transactional and transformative psychophysical plane located within the processes of painting itself. This painting simultaneously presents a structure and an antistructure, the 'holes' within the 'whole'. Here, we are in/between; unsure of what we are being asked to see, ovoid cellular spaces reveal visceral glimpses of something eerily beautiful. It is hopeful for the future.
Date:
August 2021
Medium:
oil, acrylic, resin on board.
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.sallybailey.co.uk

Sally Bailey — Specimen No. 1 (Fleshcube)

Sally Bailey — Specimen No. 1 (Fleshcube)

Sculpture

Sally Bailey — Specimen No. 1 (Fleshcube)

Sculpture

Artwork description:
This small artefact was made following a very long period of creative stagnation caused by the pandemic. Unable to access my studio during lockdown, I felt very separated from my practice, and my confidence was exhausted. I had to find a refuge within my own being where it felt safe to think about my work, to plan exit strategies from this period of withdrawal, and to explore new ways of working in these non-normative conditions. It seemed appropriate to reduce the scale of my work, to echo the shrinkage of our lived experiences since the imposition of lockdowns, distancing and isolation. This reductive process also extended to the materials I would choose. My aim was to make something with paint (but without painting) that could perhaps illuminate a path back to painting; to develop a restorative process of intimacy with the paint, to illicit a trust that had become so lacking. This small object is strangely visceral, an abject representation of a captured moment.
Date:
June 2020
Medium:
oil paint, acrylic resin on wire support
Category:
Sculpture
Website/s:
https://www.sallybailey.co.uk

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers IV

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers IV

Mixed Media

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers IV

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
This ongoing series of Collagraphic Monoprints are made from gendered coverings, including ‘real’ surfaces like human hair, mixed with ‘artificial’ ones, such as lace, ribbon, hair nets and tights. The hand drawn elements work alongside the printed elements and are reminiscent of the female reproductive system (fallopian tubes, milk ducts and vagina-like parts). These pieces play with notions of the ‘monstrous feminine’, intending to provoke desire and disgust at the ‘unbounded’ female body. Borders are playfully transgressed as outer feminine coverings merge with internal female body parts, permeating between seductive textures, protective coverings and visceral embodiment.
Date:
September 2020
Medium:
Collagraphic Monoprint with Pencil
Category:
Mixed Media
Website/s:
https://www.sallybutcher.com/

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers VIII

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers VIII

Mixed Media

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers VIII

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
These ongoing series of Collagraphic Monoprints are made from gendered coverings, including ‘real’ surfaces like human hair, mixed with ‘artificial’ ones, such as lace, ribbon, hair nets and tights. The hand drawn elements work alongside the printed elements and are reminiscent of the female reproductive system (fallopian tubes, milk ducts and vagina-like parts). These pieces play with notions of the ‘monstrous feminine’, intending to provoke desire and disgust at the ‘unbounded’ female body. Borders are playfully transgressed as outer feminine coverings merge with internal female body parts, permeating between seductive textures, protective coverings and visceral embodiment.
Date:
December 2021
Medium:
Collagraphic Monoprint with Pencil
Category:
Mixed Media
Website/s:
https://www.sallybutcher.com/

Sally Payen — Sketchbook of Fecundus

Sally Payen — Sketchbook of Fecundus

Painting

Sally Payen — Sketchbook of Fecundus

Painting

Artwork description:
This work in 12 parts is inspired by botanical studies of plants, bees, pollination and our relationship with nature, encouraging a proactive connective response - that we are nature and not separate. One of the panels has a person turned into a flower shape, another a person climbing close to a hive to collect honey; others are exploring the feeling of being mesmerised by staring into the flower core and I have enjoyed pairing colours like colour wheels, this is also a symbol of connectivity. This work connects to my recent commission at Birmingham Museums Think Tank for the climate change gallery. Here the work is entitled Collapsing Colony, We Foragers Unquiet. My hope is that the sublime beauty of nature will inspire more people to work toward repairing and protecting this world.
Date:
2019-2022
Medium:
oil on linen board
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.sallypayen.info
https://www.instagram.com/sallypayen/

Sam Hale — The Red Jumper/ Here is Where We Meet

Sam Hale — The Red Jumper/ Here is Where We Meet

Drawing

Sam Hale — The Red Jumper/ Here is Where We Meet

Drawing

Artwork description:
Red Jumper/ Here is Where We Meet- I recently came across a red jumper knitted for me by my mother as an 18th birthday present. The feel of it somehow conjured her, needles clicking, talking, laughing, glasses perched unnecessarily on the end of her nose- she could have knitted with her eyes shut. Looking at it all of these years later I appreciate her work and craft. This object of power is where we meet.
Date:
19/02/2022
Medium:
Pencil and soya sauce on paper
Category:
Drawing

Sam Hale — The Ring/ Here is Where We Meet

Sam Hale — The Ring/ Here is Where We Meet

Drawing

Sam Hale — The Ring/ Here is Where We Meet

Drawing

Artwork description:
The Ring/ Here is Where we Meet I inherited my Mother’s wedding, along with the wedding rings of my Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers. Collectively the rings represent more than 250 years of marriage. For many working-class women, they are one of the few objects left behind after their deaths. Mom’s ring perfectly describes her finger, and she never took it off for 52 years. These objects are a physical representation of these strong women and add to my feeling of being hefted.
Date:
20/04/2021
Medium:
Pencil on paper
Category:
Drawing

Sanah Iqbal — Fajr / A New Dawn

Sanah Iqbal — Fajr / A New Dawn

Photography

Sanah Iqbal — Fajr / A New Dawn

Photography

Artwork description:
Working with ReFramed, I adopted a documentary approach when examining the effects that Covid-19 is having on the Muslim community. Using fragments of light and shadow, I highlight extracts of the mosque which are overlooked, and give them a renewed perspective. The ambience created within the space reveals how detached we have been with each other but a light shines through bringing hope for a new dawn. Throughout this series, I explore the significant changes that have emerged in religious spaces as a result of Covid-19. I focus on the muslim community, showcasing how mosques have enforced social distancing measures to ensure the safety of individuals coming together to pray. Prayer is an essential part of a muslim’s life. Pre-Covid mosques were bustling for individual and communal prayers. When congregating everyone stood in straight rows shoulder-to-shoulder. The arrival of Covid-19 has shaken the practice of congregational prayers, enforcing social distancing which is now the
Date:
20220
Medium:
Photography
Category:
Photography

Sangita Kumari — Shanti

Sangita Kumari — Shanti

Painting

Sangita Kumari — Shanti

Painting

Artwork description:
Shanti, 2020 Inner peace, reflected outwardly. Water colour pencil and ink on paper, 5 x 7inches.
Date:
2020
Medium:
Water colour pencil and Ink
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://masonsdesign.com/

Sangita Kumari — Gully

Sangita Kumari — Gully

Painting

Sangita Kumari — Gully

Painting

Artwork description:
In the streets of India are you see the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but now and then, you will find a pocket of peace.
Date:
2020
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas paper
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://masonsdesign.com/

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Orange Circles and Shapes

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Orange Circles and Shapes

Painting

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Orange Circles and Shapes

Painting

Artwork description:
Ink, acrylic paint and paint pen on canvas.
Date:
September 2021
Medium:
Ink, acrylic paint and paint pen
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.sarahbagshaw.com
https://www.instagram.com/sarahbagshawdesign
https://ello.co/sarahbagshaw
https://www.facebook.com/Sarah-Bagshaw-Design-2

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Purple Circles and Shapes

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Purple Circles and Shapes

Painting

Sarah Bagshaw — Pink and Purple Circles and Shapes

Painting

Artwork description:
Ink, acrylic paint and paint pen on canvas.
Date:
September 2021
Medium:
Ink, acrylic paint and paint pen
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.sarahbagshaw.com
https://www.instagram.com/sarahbagshawdesign
https://ello.co/sarahbagshaw
https://www.facebook.com/Sarah-Bagshaw-Design-2

Sarah Byrne — Dad’s home before home

Artwork description:
Sarah Byrne is an artist interested in themes surrounding memory, family, nostalgia, identity and home. After a period of time exploring photographs of her childhood and unpicking her relationship to her mixed heritage, Byrne's life was flipped as her father became sick. She lost him some months later, and in the following return to her practice, it has been impossible to ignore her grief and the loss of her family as she knew it. Her practice continues to be led by the involvement of found family snapshots, however they have now been refocused around her father. 'Dad's home before home' is a series of images taken from a collection of his photographs found posthumously.
Date:
2022
Medium:
Found photographs
Category:
Print
Website/s:
https://sarah-byrne.com

Sarah Byrne — Working from Home

Sarah Byrne — Working from Home

Sculpture

Sarah Byrne — Working from Home

Sculpture

Artwork description:
'Working from home' is a significant term in 2022 - flung into everyday vernacular in 2020 by the pandemic. Growing up, my dad had always worked from home. Significant since this meant my father's presence was consistent, reliable, and embedded into daily home routines. Like myself, dad was a home-body; comforted by the familiar and the familial. This series of work explores the notion of working from home in the context of art work. While grieving, crochet quickly became an activity to allow my hands to pour over. Mindless knotting of yarn, repeating patterns and satisfying colour changes. Soon the process of creating these squares became less about the product being made, and more about the drive to make. I was making, I was home, and I was allowing my mind the space to meditate on the significance of all of these things. A process of working through grief; of making time feel real.
Date:
2022
Medium:
Yarn installation
Category:
Sculpture
Website/s:
https://sarah-byrne.com

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Painting

Sarah Fortes Mayer — mum

Painting

Artwork description:
mum started out as a portrait of my mother when she was 30 years old. Initially in charcoal. I did not feel I was capturing her, except her penetrating eyes, her gaze does not falter. As I worked I was becoming angry about Covid and the restrictions. I felt I was losing precious time when who knows how much longer I will have. I hate wearing masks and in anger I wiped out the mouth as I felt we were not being heard or seen. The elderly were being wiped out again. This image has a slight resemblance to The Queen and on reflection I have always felt that she is gagged not free to speak her mind.
Date:
2020/21
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas
Category:
Painting

Sarah Goudie — ‘Listening gift : a dawning’

Sarah Goudie — ‘Listening gift : a dawning’

Sculpture

Sarah Goudie — ‘Listening gift : a dawning’

Sculpture

Artwork description:
‘Listening gift : a dawning’ one of a series of drawn /sculptural works made in the early and later hours of a day over extended periods of time. A bedroom wall performs a reliable, private place of slow return where a drawing process gathers, harmonises and settles disquiets of the mind and body. Working a surface through graphite forms a narrative capturing skin; pressed, rolled, burnished and nuanced. Over time, this surface absorbs and relocates daily exchanges of longing. It captures imprints of a listening body and conjures the mapping of a dream, this slow method of making, draws out a form that teases the two dimensional and offers the possibility of finding a sculptural offer. These ‘gifts’ weave their way out into the world as a reply to extraordinary work delivered via recorded lecture series and zoom events with generosity and a yearning to exchange learning. With thanks to the Sh+me project, shining light on the enquiries of sexual violence https://shame.bbk.ac.uk/
Date:
June 2021
Medium:
pencil on paper
Category:
Sculpture
Website/s:
https://sarahgoudie.com/

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Painting

Saranjit Birdi — Just One More Tune

Painting

Artwork description:
After suffering isolation and alienation through the last two years of the pandemic, this painting series, ‘The Dance’, explores the euphoria, intimacy and intensity of the night club dance scene pre-Covid and the longing for the energy of physical proximity. The work also reflects on Birdi’s experiences of disco dancing from the late 1970s to the present, being an active member of the UK underground jazz-fusion dance scene, especially Birmingham, from 2000 to now. He has a mention in ‘From Jazz Funk & Fusion To Acid Jazz: The History Of The UK Jazz Dance Scene’ by Mark Cotgrove,(2009)
Date:
December 2021
Medium:
Acrylic on paper
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://saranjit.birdi@btinternet.com https://axisweb.org/p/saranjitbirdi
https://www.instagram.com/saranjitbirdi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/saranjitbirdi/

Sharon Baker — Folding 1

Sharon Baker — Folding 1

Mixed Media

Sharon Baker — Folding 1

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
These pieces originated from drawings based on net curtains in a window. My first studies were highly contrasting drawings. In an attempt to soften graphic black and white of the images I experimented with paper marbling layers of ink to evoke the suggestion of folds in fabric. My results have an element of this but I now see them as drawings containing a tension: a folding in or a breaking out, a tautness. The pattern of the net curtains is pushed in-between rock-like textures suggesting a squeezing, a suffocating, a hemming in. For me the images have become metaphors for my feelings of constraint about the work I want to make and the time I need to do it and the pull and push of everyday life.
Date:
2022
Medium:
pen & ink, paper marbling on handmade paper
Category:
Mixed Media
Website/s:
https://www.sharonbaker.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/sharonbakerartistprintmaker
https://www.instagram.com/sharonbakerartistprintmaker
https://www.axisweb.org/p/sharonbaker/

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Painting

Sharon Ryal — ICE

Painting

Artwork description:
Abstract acrylic on canvas - 94cm x 94cm - part of a set of paintings depicting the effects of climate change, ICE is a stand alone piece painted in 2021 as part of my show for level 4 Fine Art at Wolverhampton University.
Date:
Nov 2021
Medium:
Acrylic on canvas
Category:
Painting
https://www.instagram.com/shazzamart/

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Painting

Sharon Ryal — HOME

Painting

Artwork description:
Oil on MDF - 28cm x 61cm - part of a set of paintings depicting the effects of climate change, HOME was painted in 2021, one of the first paintings I did at the start of my BA in Fine art at Wolverhampton University. A highly textured painting, HOME is part of the Ice & Fire series.
Date:
Oct 2021
Medium:
Oil on MDF
Category:
Painting
https://www.instagram.com/shazzamart/

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Painting

Shaun Hughes — Mind Paths

Painting

Artwork description:
This small watercolour is part of my 'pathway' series. It explores imaginary paths, routes and connections. It is inspired by reading about neural pathways in the brain. For me it is a kind of a depiction of the brain but also represents complex city type areas contrasted with calmer and more ordered environments. The centre of the image is a mass of confused and congested paths (thoughts) cut across by large sweeping ring roads. The colours are warm greens and reds as opposed to the cooler blues and blacks of the areas outside of the brain.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Watercolour and Pen
Category:
Painting

Shaun Morris — Zona

Shaun Morris — Zona

Painting

Shaun Morris — Zona

Painting

Artwork description:
I see myself as a painter of landscapes, although I strive to avoid many of the associations with the tradition of landscape painting. I don’t paint the seemingly picturesque; the bucolic countryside or the dramatic coast as, from my surburban home, I don’t live anywhere near these places. I prefer to paint the landmarks of the Supermarket car-park, the local bus stop or the disused telephone box. I may paint nature, but it’s the nature of the common edgelands and woods, or the nature found down by the canals or underneath the motorways and at the feet of the pylons that loom dumbly and menacingly on the edge of the housing estates. In my painting I want to see my everyday experience reflected back, but also to find the myriad stories and histories locked in or buried in the ruins of the post-industrial landscape.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.shaunmorrispaintings.com

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Painting

Shaun Morris — Highway Anxiety

Painting

Artwork description:
I see myself as a painter of landscapes, although I strive to avoid many of the associations with the tradition of landscape painting. I don’t paint the seemingly picturesque; the bucolic countryside or the dramatic coast as, from my surburban home, I don’t live anywhere near these places. I prefer to paint the landmarks of the Supermarket car-park, the local bus stop or the disused telephone box. I may paint nature, but it’s the nature of the common edgelands and woods, or the nature found down by the canals or underneath the motorways and at the feet of the pylons that loom dumbly and menacingly on the edge of the housing estates. In my painting I want to see my everyday experience reflected back, but also to find the myriad stories and histories locked in or buried in the ruins of the post-industrial landscape.
Date:
2021
Medium:
oil on canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://www.shaunmorrispaintings.com

Sherie Sitauze — mbedzi land, our land, queens land

Audio/visual

Sherie Sitauze — mbedzi land, our land, queens land

Audio/visual

Sherie Sitauze — mbedzi land, our land, queens land

Audio/visual

Artwork description:
The video concerns an attempt at piecing together fragments of a history where documentation is scarce. Fragments of the history are revealed during a nuanced and intimate dialogue. Through video montage, the work seeks to navigate some of the traditional myths and histories of the Vhavenda while averting the colonial gaze and its Eurocentric ideologies. It demonstrates a history independent of colonialism while also touching on migration, the movement of peoples and seeks to challenge preconceived ideas regarding migration and the construction of Otherness. It employs the power of storytelling in order to educate, share and cultivate and evocative of the experience of displaced peoples in navigating their own histories of home while in a state of diaspora.
Date:
2020
Medium:
Moving image
Category:
Audio/visual
Website/s:
www.sheriesitauze.com

Sherrie Edgar — Fluidity

Audio/visual

Sherrie Edgar — Fluidity

Audio/visual

Sherrie Edgar — Fluidity

Audio/visual

Artwork description:
3 minute art film representing the questions; what makes art? By displaying the embodiment of the material. I personify the energy that is embodied in the material. Women are objectified and subjectified in art, in this film I am the art. I want to liberate female art because of the inequalities experienced as a female. This is part of my ‘Pink!’ series and a visual representation of the lack of opportunities for women in the arts, the discrepancies of women in film, and the deep-rooted inequalities women experience. As an act of activism, a performative visual representation of feminism, continuing the pink haptics and characteristics. Feminism connects to my primary theme of loneliness and the social politics of isolation. Continuing my research of conceptual art origin and the attestation of gender roles which continues. This work galvanizes Yves Klein's Anthropometries reflecting back on the personal, social and political perspectives.
Date:
18th December 2021
Medium:
Digital Film
Category:
Audio/visual
Website/s:
https://sherrieedgar.com
https://www.instagram.com/sherriegram/
https://twitter.com/TweetSherrie
https://www.facebook.com/SEVisualArt/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCESjGPG1z4NqS0QidZVD0kA/videos

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Painting

Shirley Szwarc — Woodland Tree

Painting

Artwork description:
I regularly sit in woodland to draw trees, my favourite medium is charcoal. A few years ago I attended a screen print workshop and used some of my charcoal drawings to create prints. During lockdown I used one of the imperfect prints as a starting point to this painting. I wanted to create an imagined environment which captured the rich textures and enveloped the viewer, similar to what I experience when out drawing. I used some of my charcoal drawings for reference.
Date:
Summer 2021
Medium:
Acrylic
Category:
Painting

Sophia Moffa — inner houses, outer houses

Sophia Moffa — inner houses, outer houses

Sculpture

Sophia Moffa — inner houses, outer houses

Sculpture

Artwork description:
‘inner houses, outer houses’ in an installation the artist has made in response to the question of ‘home’ that she has asked while working with asylum seekers in Birmingham. The work questions the idea of what home is by those who are recreating it here in Birmingham. The houses are made from the soil of Birmingham, which has been filtered to make clay, impressed by the leaves of the trees surrounding us and fired back in the ground with the saggar technique. Our stereotypical image of home are these little square houses with pointy roofs. We cling to this safe appearance but our feelings of what a home is, is influenced from our lives as children and keeps changing as we grow. ‘home’ is riddled with incoherencies and paradoxes, the more we question what home is, the more its image becomes abstracted. Every side to the house is engraved with the veins of the leaf, acting like roads, cut by the sharp edges of the house, like boarders. Yet they are all belonging to the same house.
Date:
2022
Medium:
clay
Category:
Sculpture
Website/s:
https://sophiamoffa.com
https://www.instagram.com/sophiamoffa/
https://www.instagram.com/the_travellers_tree/

Sophie Huckfield — Break The Frame

Sophie Huckfield — Break The Frame

Mixed Media

Sophie Huckfield — Break The Frame

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
Made in lockdown 2020, the work: Break The Frame, incorporates contemporary and traditional craft processes: from hacking open source technology, puppetry, poetry, a musical score, stop motion and moving image, as a tool to deconstruct the narratives around ‘Progress’ in relation to precarious labour practices, social class and technological development. The work was developed in response to my Dads redundancy in September 2019, he worked as a bookie for William Hill in Walsall for 43 years. His redundancy was deemed ‘inevitable’. This is not a new story. It is one replayed throughout history. Those who do not step away in the relentless pursuit of 'progress' are considered regressive and against the inevitable order. Building on the Midlands history of the Luddites, the work seeks to challenge how we are treated as workers. Beyond the veil of innovation is an old story, this story must be challenged and the tools to hand co-opted to question the narrative we are told to follow.
Date:
June 2020
Medium:
Moving Image and Sculpture
Category:
Mixed Media
Website/s:
https://sophiehuckfield.com/

Sophie Huckfield — …it is time that we become human again

Audio/visual

Sophie Huckfield — …it is time that we become human again

Audio/visual

Sophie Huckfield — …it is time that we become human again

Audio/visual

Artwork description:
The work interrogates how automation is often used as a political tool to deskill and displace workers over upskilling. It parallels the implementation and impact of automation inn different industries, from surgery to food packing, using the metaphor of the’ cut’ as a material action and a symbolic and economic reality. The contemporary technologies of surgical trade embody a collaborative relationship - with human interaction/interface intrinsic to how they operate. These tools are operated manually by Surgeons. They are designed to upskill - opposed to deskilling. The narrative around Surgical robots sits at odds with the dominant histories of machines displacing workers, researching the historic and social backdrop of surgical tools development, the work is centered on the idea of the ‘cut’ both as a literal and historic action and as a symbolic and economic reality. Incorporating the action of the ‘cut’ throughout the work which explores the complex reality of automation.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Moving Image
Category:
Audio/visual
Website/s:
https://sophiehuckfield.com/

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Painting

Stella Carr — Moon Tempest II

Painting

Artwork description:
A landscape at night during Storm Eunice under a full moon with tempestuous clouds racing, obliterating the light from the moon for sometimes minutes then illuminating the landscape detail. Working in moonlight enables colour and texture to be stripped down to a felt resonance rather than a visual one. The foreground is a merge of ghost figures and thick foliage with the silhouettes of distant buildings offering thin protection from the elements and the spirits that pass through. Fundamentally a view of the vibrational effect the world is made up of. This painting speaks of the symbiotic relationship we have with our environment, we the ‘audience’ become ‘participants’. This boundary-less connection with ecology takes its form from a sensed system that we all cohabit. Ecosystems are blurred edges; multitudes of species, each growing with individual characteristics, whilst existing as one linked system. This is an image of what we cannot see yet feel.
Date:
2022
Medium:
Body colour, Gouache, Walnut Ink
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
stellacarr.co.uk

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Threads of Fate

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Threads of Fate

Photography

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Threads of Fate

Photography

Artwork description:
The image features a constructed sculptural tableau that is photographed in a high contrast backlit studio environment and subsequently manipulated digitally with a post-production technique normally eschewed by professional photographers. Threads of Fate, with a title taken from Timothy Morton's Dark Ecologies, depicts entangled, botanical phantasmagoria, inspired by the 1930’s ‘Jungle Paintings’ of Max Ernst and surrealist sculptural assemblages. The work explores the human relationship to the natural world, the environmental impact of mass consumerism, and the potential consequences of climate change. Alluding to a Ballardian theme of nature’s retribution that questions the myth of human supremacy and the return of nature in the PostHuman.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Photography
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
https://stephanierushton.format.com/rushton-mallinson-collaboration

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Skip of Fools

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Skip of Fools

Photography

Stephanie Rushton & Mally Mallinson — Skip of Fools

Photography

Artwork description:
Located in ecological posthumanism, this work explores the cultural imaginaries of science and speculative fiction; a blend of the sculptural and photographic that seeks to make manifest, dystopian myths of the near future. ‘Skip of Fools’, refers to book VI of Plato’s Republic about a ship with a dysfunctional crew, the skeletal figure pushes a skip/ship up a mountain of architectural debris, an allegory to the Greek myth of Sisyphus and the eternal loop of our self-destruction on earth. The skip is full of live botanicals, a reference to the film ‘Silent Running’ a 1972 American post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie, set in the future after all plant life on earth has perished. The last surviving forests have been collected and preserved in a series of giant geodesic domed greenhouses attached to spaceships, located just outside the orbit of Saturn.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Photograph
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
https://stephanierushton.format.com/rushton-mallinson-collaboration

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Painting

Steve Coel — Wildmoor Pool, Long Mynd

Painting

Artwork description:
Formerly a place of industry and hard labour. The landscape retains all the marks as nature slowly erases the memories.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Panel
Category:
Painting

Steve Evans — Earth Beams

Steve Evans — Earth Beams

Drawing

Steve Evans — Earth Beams

Drawing

Artwork description:
A small geometric abstract/linear drawing made using contemporary and traditional technical drawing pens and sepia acrylic inks. It is dedicated to late tenor saxophone player George Adams and titled for one of his compositions.
Date:
2020
Medium:
Ink on Paper
Category:
Drawing

Steve Evans — Fast Track

Steve Evans — Fast Track

Drawing

Steve Evans — Fast Track

Drawing

Artwork description:
An abstract geometric/linear drawing made on black card using contemporary and traditional technical drawing pens and white and blue acrylic inks.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Ink on Card
Category:
Drawing

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Painting

Stuart Brambell — 60’s Wallpaper

Painting

Artwork description:
This work is also in three parts. An image of Lee Harvey Oswold getting assassinated while leaving the courthouse, a detail of an Edouard Manet painting of a dead bull fighter and a pop graphic image of a Greek classical sculpture. Again, I am providing the audience with tools to unpick the narratives themselves. There is not one singular narrative in art, and I want the viewer to glean what they can with the tools I have provided them.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
https://stuartbrambell.wixsite.com/mysite

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Painting

Susan Krejzl — Three yellows and a grey

Painting

Artwork description:
This painting has been formed by the preparation of a wooden block through cutting and sanding to create an almost egg shell surface. The surface was primed and then layered with egg tempera applied with small brush strokes to create a skien of colour, finally layered with a protective skin of beeswax. There is no system behind the making other than an intuition. The surface brush strokes employed three yellows and a grey. When placed the yellow gently pools reflectively on the wall surface.The facets of the paintings pick up the light and the light causes shadows. This piece provides a more intimate looking, It is not just a marker for a larger space but a small moment that offers some time for contemplation. I see my work as detailed and delicate and very much about noticing and paying attention. The act of making is in itself political, but here is the quiet ‘politics’ of small everyday acts, often unnoticed, but cared for.
Date:
2021
Medium:
Egg tempera over wood
Category:
Painting
Website/s:
http://www.ahskeditions.co.uk

Tess Radcliffe — Freedom is Imagination

Tess Radcliffe — Freedom is Imagination

Photography

Tess Radcliffe — Freedom is Imagination

Photography

Artwork description:
'Freedom is Imagination' is a self-portrait which documents a personal period of ill health, which often resulted in my isolation and frequent bed rest, where my return to good health was nurtured by my engagement with the natural world. I am an avid wild and garden bird enthusiast and decided to create a haven for birds in my garden in order to counteract the decline in numbers through creating an inviting environment in which many varieties could thrive (which was a great success!). I then photographed the variety of birds which visited my garden, to observe them and to learn more about them. I found that I was inspired by their beauty, entertained by their curious behaviours and fascinated by their interactions, all of which facilitated my own healing and recovery. In this image I am surrounded by an adult and juvenile Goldfinch, a Blue Tit and a House Sparrow, where the birds symbolise freedom whilst I dream of making art.
Date:
September 2021
Medium:
Photomontage print, paper
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
https://tessradcliffeartist.com
https://www.instagram.com/tessradcliffe/?hl=en

Theresa Bradbury — Keep Intact The Circulation Of Pretence By Enveloping Herself In Femininity

Theresa Bradbury — Keep Intact The Circulation Of Pretence By Enveloping Herself In Femininity

Photography

Theresa Bradbury — Keep Intact The Circulation Of Pretence By Enveloping Herself In Femininity

Photography

Artwork description:
The performer seeks sanctuary within the familiarity of the net curtain, partially hidden, but vulnerable in her nakedness, is the textile providing peace or is it stifling in its position as representing a culturally dictated femininity. Presenting herself as a live sculpture, she is posed. Performing the rhetoric of the pose, she is immobilised by their gaze and the gaze is immobilised her presence. The surface of the body as the site of cultural inscription, bound by political forces. In this masquerade, the woman is concealed by reproducing the dominant image of femininity through the discipline to societal norms and viewed through a patriarchal lens. The work draws influence from consumerist capitalism and explores the idea of the female body as inherently performic. An exploration into the ideas of Joan Riviere that femininity can be viewed as a masquerade, performed by mimicking what being a woman is meant to be about; woman concealed behind the mask of a patriarchal femininity.
Date:
November 2021
Medium:
C-Type Photograph
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
https://www.axisweb.org/p/theresabradbury

Theresa Bradbury — Of Never Being Simply One

Theresa Bradbury — Of Never Being Simply One

Photography

Theresa Bradbury — Of Never Being Simply One

Photography

Artwork description:
With the work, I am exploring and interrogating social boundaries and acceptable codes of exposure; the appropriate/inappropriate dichotomy in relation to femininity. Referencing a disruption of the social and symbolic ordering of the female body and a rejection of woman as idealised surface; subverting the socially dictated artificial femininity represented through media imagery. Disembodied female body parts are used within the media as Capitalist advertorial eroticism. The work explores the idea put forward by Sandra Bartky of the self-policing female, committed to a relentless self-surveillance and an obedience to patriarchy; paralysed as commodity. Women’s bodies are bound by the societal norms which shape them into a constraining corporeality that is difficult to inhabit, assessed against the narrow framework of patriarchal governance. Of Never Being Simply One offers a disruption from the regulation and scrutiny involved in being a female body.
Date:
November 2021
Medium:
C-Type Photograph
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
https://www.axisweb.org/p/theresabradbury

Tom Ranahan — Foggy Morning along the Tame Valley Canal.

Tom Ranahan — Foggy Morning along the Tame Valley Canal.

Photography

Tom Ranahan — Foggy Morning along the Tame Valley Canal.

Photography

Artwork description:
Colour Photograph taking during a recent walk along the Tame Valley canal on Boxing Day. The foggy weather gives it an eerie/moody feel. it features the Freeth bridge over the canal.
Date:
26th December 2021
Medium:
Colour Photograph
Category:
Photography
Website/s:
http://www.tomranahan.com

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Birthday Girl

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Birthday Girl

Photography

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Birthday Girl

Photography

Artwork description:
A photographic self-portrait inspired by a family snapshot taken when I was about eight years old. This images challenges and disrupts the discourse of femininity.
Date:
February 2022
Medium:
Inkjet Print
Category:
Photography

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Naughty Teddy

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Naughty Teddy

Photography

Vicky Hodgson — Untitled from the series: Naughty Teddy

Photography

Artwork description:
A photographic self-portrait inspired by a professional photograph of me taken when I was about 2 years old. This image challenges and disrupts the discourse of femininity.
Date:
January 2022
Medium:
Inkjet Print
Category:
Photography

Vicky Roden — Why Be The Next That When I’m The First This?

Vicky Roden — Why Be The Next That When I’m The First This?

Mixed Media

Vicky Roden — Why Be The Next That When I’m The First This?

Mixed Media

Artwork description:
Why Be The Next That When I’m The First This? is a lighthearted response to a sentence I’ve heard many times over the past couple of years. I’m incredibly proud of the things businesses in Digbeth have achieved over the past decade or so, with much of this being led by the creative industry. It’s incredibly frustrating to be told (in an exceptionally well-meaning way) that one magic day Digbeth could attain the same heady heights as Shoreditch. I prefer to think of it being the only Digbeth. The only way to become a definite thing that you are not is to sell your soul. There’s a myriad of tales of transactions with the devil at crossroads, but this act takes away all that you could independently achieve in favour of a more definite, fantastical future. As the prosperity of Digbeth grows it slips out of the budget of the artists, musicians & makers who did so much to improve the area. Here’s hoping that it retains its soul & avoids the easy path of becoming an inevitably inferior copy.
Date:
2022
Medium:
Textile/Embroidery
Category:
Mixed Media
Website/s:
http://vickyroden.com

Vicky Wyton-Mills — Beneath the Ballroom