West Midlands Open

Floor 3 | 20 May — 25 September 2022

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present, for the first time, the West Midlands Open, an exhibition of recent artworks in various media by artists from, or connected, to the region. The exhibition follows an open-call to West Midlands artists, including those currently attending an art school in the region or educated here in the past 10 years.

The Gallery received over 500 entries from across the region, spanning Greater Birmingham, The Black Country, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. From these, a panel of independent judges and Gallery staff selected 250 works for exhibition.

The West Midlands Open celebrates the quality, diversity and vibrancy of the local visual arts ecology and provides a platform and selling opportunity for artists in the region.

All works in the exhibition can be viewed below, ordered alphabetically by first name, and sorted via category;

Aliya Perager — When I close my eyes

Mixed Media

Aliya Perager — When I close my eyes

Mixed Media

Aliya Perager — When I close my eyes

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'When I close my eyes' is a mixed media piece which uses acrylics, watercolours, oil pastels, modelling paste, acrylic pens, soft pastels and gold leaf. When I created the piece, I wanted to show the different things I see when I close my eyes and how my mind wonders from one thing to the next. It explores how the mind can sometimes be comforting with bright colours and on the other side, the thoughts we may feel when we are down. I want to show how the mind is a marvellous thing. The central part of the piece is a face with flowers coming out of the head. For this, I hope to show it as a reminder that we must continue to 'water' our minds with friends, family, art, doing something that makes us feel great - for us to keep blossoming. And that's why I have the watercolour drips and the flowers so bright and vibrant. I used patterns that related to my culture and experimented with techniques that my mind wanted to see come alive.
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Andrew John Smith — Eine Kleine Nicht Musik (Homes Under The Hammer)

Mixed Media

Andrew John Smith — Eine Kleine Nicht Musik (Homes Under The Hammer)

Mixed Media

Andrew John Smith — Eine Kleine Nicht Musik (Homes Under The Hammer)

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Eine Kleine Nicht Musik, is part of a series of works begun during the period of lockdown. I spent a lot of time stuck inside reading Derrida and watching Homes Under The Hammer (amongst other things). I became interested in the rooms shown in the tv programme, particularly the more abject ones pre-transformation. Thinking about the reading, and processes of citationality and iterability, I took photos of some of those rooms, from the tv screen, and began painting on them. Perhaps in relation to the period when these works began, the painterly modifications often present an expansion/extension of the space of the room. Also, I’d like to think that the works offer an implied comparison between the forms of value accrued by the various property developers in Homes Under The Hammer and the value of the artistic work.
  • Date:
    October 2020
  • Medium:
    Acrylic on digital print
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.andrew-smith-h-r-smoke.com

Anne Guest — Home from Home

Mixed Media

Anne Guest — Home from Home

Mixed Media

Anne Guest — Home from Home

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world (Natural History Museum 2021). The intensification of agriculture has resulted in loss of habitats and there is an increase in pollution due to our throw away culture. Home from Home explores these issues. I am interested in with how we simultaneously celebrate nature whilst trashing it with our detritus. As natural habitats decline will nature be able to adapt to these new constructed habitats? The gold metal leaf detail represents a ‘ray or glimmer of hope’.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Cyanotype with gold metal leaf detail
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://anneguest.co.uk

Anne Guest — Borderland

Mixed Media

Anne Guest — Borderland

Mixed Media

Anne Guest — Borderland

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world (Natural History Museum 2021). The intensification of agriculture has resulted in loss of habitats and there is an increase in pollution due to our throw away culture. 'Borderland' explores these issues. I am interested in with how we simultaneously celebrate nature whilst trashing it with our detritus. As natural habitats decline will nature be able to adapt to these new constructed habitats? The gold metal leaf detail represents a ‘ray or glimmer of hope’.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Cyanotype with gold metal leaf detail
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://anneguest.co.uk

Black Hole Club — D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better (2005): A Polyptych of Stephen Snoddy

Mixed Media

Black Hole Club — D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better (2005): A Polyptych of Stephen Snoddy

Mixed Media

Black Hole Club — D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better (2005): A Polyptych of Stephen Snoddy

Mixed Media ×

Charlie Hurcombe — Newport Conversation

Mixed Media

Charlie Hurcombe — Newport Conversation

Mixed Media

Charlie Hurcombe — Newport Conversation

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Newport Conversation' is a wall mounted relief and is one of an ongoing series of works exploring the utilisation of reclaimed and found materials, repetition of form, colour, aspects of manufacture, fabrication, assembly and construction, unity and fragments, and exists as an heterogenous object referencing diverse aspects of the Baroque and Minimalism. ‘Baroque, Barraco, A jeweller’s term: an irregular shaped or flawed pearl.’ (The Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture, Greg Lambert, Continuum 2004). 'Newport Conversation' and related works are a development of concerns made evident following the commission awarded by artsNK Sleaford in 2012 where found materials from the Lincolnshire coast were utilised in the production of a sculpture.
  • Date:
    June 2020
  • Medium:
    Birch plywood, Perspex, Formica, sheet acrylic, vinyl, found plastic and screws.
  • Category:
    Sculpture

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (You Are Only Here Once)

Mixed Media

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (You Are Only Here Once)

Mixed Media

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (You Are Only Here Once)

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    The collages submitted to the West Midlands Open were made late in Chris’s life when he was physically suffering and acutely aware of his own mortality. The themes explored in these works are topical to Chris’s personal life and include reflections on the afterlife and the changes that took place as his illness progressed. The compositions also reflect the interplay between symmetry and asymmetry in the body, while a recurring motif in many of the collages is a stitched outline of the organs attacked by the artist’s cancer. The collages also evidence Chris’s longstanding interest in Dadaism and the cosmological depictions found in religions, spiritualism and the occult. There are also observations on contemporary life - the making of these works was overshadowed by a pandemic among other things.
  • Date:
    2020-21
  • Medium:
    Mixed media collage on paper
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (Into Flames)

Mixed Media

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (Into Flames)

Mixed Media

Chris Reynolds — Untitled (Into Flames)

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    The collages submitted to the West Midlands Open were made late in Chris’s life when he was physically suffering and acutely aware of his own mortality. The themes explored in these works are topical to Chris’s personal life and include reflections on the afterlife and the changes that took place as his illness progressed. The compositions also reflect the interplay between symmetry and asymmetry in the body, while a recurring motif in many of the collages is a stitched outline of the organs attacked by the artist’s cancer. The collages also evidence Chris’s longstanding interest in Dadaism and the cosmological depictions found in religions, spiritualism and the occult. There are also observations on contemporary life - the making of these works was overshadowed by a pandemic among other things.
  • Date:
    2020-21
  • Medium:
    Mixed media collage on paper
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Claire Buckerfield — Nine Buildings in Willenhall

Mixed Media

Claire Buckerfield — Nine Buildings in Willenhall

Mixed Media

Claire Buckerfield — Nine Buildings in Willenhall

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Nine Buildings in Willenhall' is a work that explores our surroundings through a different lens and celebrates that which largely goes unnoticed. I chose to focus on architecture in a small local town rather than the more imposing buildings in a city or its recognisable landmarks. The intention behind the work is to highlight the beauty that can be found on our doorstep if we dare to look deeper. Each individual component of the work references a different building in Willenhall and is made with tape and ribbon as an alternative to the more traditional materials usually associated with drawing. I use simple line and form as the interpretation for these buildings. The bright colours are my way of elevating the subject matter and celebrating the banal by extrapolating elementary detail from the original buildings. The result is an artwork that can be appreciated purely as an abstract design but one that also ask questions about what is considered beautiful in a man-made landscape.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Tape, Ribbon, Paper
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • https://www.instagram.com/clairebuckerfield/

Crow Dillon-Parkin — Keppra Diaries II

Mixed Media

Crow Dillon-Parkin — Keppra Diaries II

Mixed Media

Crow Dillon-Parkin — Keppra Diaries II

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    I made ‘Keppra Diaries II’ in 2021 as part of coming to terms with my late diagnosis of epilepsy after a major seizure in 2018. I have had minor seizures all my life without being aware that there was a name for those experiences. I covered the individual canvases with patient information leaflets for my seizure control medication and extracts from my journal notes. Everything is partly hidden by the layers of blue tissue. Blue for ‘out of the blue’, blue for ‘blue sky thinking’, blue for ‘feeling blue’. The torn edges are held together by lines of gold ink, like the lead in stained glass windows or the gold in kintsugi mending. Connections are made, and interrupted, by the edges of the canvases. Trying to bring fragmented experiences back together, trying to incorporate a different definition of myself, adding more layers to my personal history, and trying to share how all of that feels. I wanted to make something soothing and beautiful from something confusing and frightening.
  • Date:
    June 2021
  • Medium:
    Collage on canvas
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.crowdillonparkin.com
  • https://www.instagram.com/crowdillonparkin/

David Stokes — Hitchcock Homage

Mixed Media

David Stokes — Hitchcock Homage

Mixed Media

David Stokes — Hitchcock Homage

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    A homage to Alfred Hitchcock, combining elements from two of his films, The Birds and Rear Window. And featuring, as always, a cameo appearance from the director himself. This piece combines elements of scale models and collage enclosed in a box frame.
  • Date:
    20-01-2022
  • Medium:
    Box frame, scale models, collage.
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • https://instagram.com/scottymadethis

Egle Gelaziute-Petrauskiene — Enclosure encounter

Mixed Media

Egle Gelaziute-Petrauskiene — Enclosure encounter

Mixed Media

Egle Gelaziute-Petrauskiene — Enclosure encounter

Mixed Media ×

Emma Bowater — Re-growth

Mixed Media

Emma Bowater — Re-growth

Mixed Media

Emma Bowater — Re-growth

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Derelict spaces succumb to the power of nature and time. This piece was created from a digital photograph manipulation using Procreate. The juxtaposition of elements of colour act as a marker for the gradual discolouration of buildings. The ash-like decay of brickwork contrasts against the new life of the natural forms that begin to take over. The image was transferred using gesso to further create a sense of textural decomposition, imitating the irregular growth pattern of moss. The image is deteriorated, much like the physical spaces and memories within.
  • Date:
    December 2020
  • Medium:
    Mixed Media
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Gillian Holtom — Bound

Mixed Media

Gillian Holtom — Bound

Mixed Media

Gillian Holtom — Bound

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Inspired by the impression of a bound woman, blocked by a tree, so much to think about and do she can never be free… Bound by expectations, fashions, society, lack of vision, lack of access, loss of voice, blocked and blind, using images cut from women's magazines of the late 70s and early 80s including images of what we used to call slave bangles that went up the arm.
  • Date:
    May 2021
  • Medium:
    Acrylic and collage on paper
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media

Helen Grundy — The Last Can Of Gasoline

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    This piece is part of a larger project, funded by The Arts Council. I have been given funding to create new work and develop my practice. I am currently working with discarded/found objects and then using them as a starting point to create narrative works that I am calling Eco Dramas. I wanted to use the vintage can of gasoline and imagine a scenario where this is the last can of gasoline left. I intially intended to place a collage inside the can but then decided to create a 3D installation, a miniature set. Using brown paper, blue tissue paper and collecting second hand Corgi cars I then made my own tiny ladders and barricades. I spent a long time playing with composition and then photographed the set and added collage figures digitally. The work references ideas about panic buying and also the film Mad Max where fighting over 'guzzolene' creates the breakdown of society.
  • Date:
    February 2022
  • Medium:
    found object/model making/collage/photography
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.helengrundy.org
  • https://www.instagram.com/grundyhelen03
  • https://www.theasylumartgallery.com/the-spaces-inbetween
  • https://www.fcac.co.uk/artist/helen-grundy/

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media

Imogen Morris — Michaela Coel

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Here I depict a portrait of actress and writer Michaela Coel. I deliberately chose Michaela Coel as, alongside being a talented and inspirational creative, Coel represents a type of female who is simultaneously bol and defiant but vulnerable and fragile. Her work tackles uncomfortable truths about the female experience in a confronting and stark way. I have made Coel’s portrait using nail and thread. My method of making consists of wrapping thread around nails which pinpoint the contours of the face to build up a mesh-like form made up of triangles. I build up layers and layers of these triangles to detail the subjects' features and create depth to the image. Alongside this I have added a second layer of coloured thread stitched into clear acrylic to distort the image of Coel beneath. The result being a bold but fragile depiction of a woman. While the triangular forms in the subject’s face are strong and harsh, they contrast with the delicacy in the materiality of the thread itself.
  • Date:
    20th February 2022
  • Medium:
    Nail, thread, acrylic on plywood board, framed in a MDF box frame
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    http://www.imogenembroideryart.com

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media

Isabelle Homer — A Gentle Push

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    A Gentle Push (2021) represents the ship as the self, travelling through time. The pandemic offered the artist bittersweet feelings of being pushed onto new paths against her will, but found that the result was often beneficial once pushed. The imagery draws upon ancient textile tapestries and oceanographic maps, reflecting new discovery.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Metal threads, leather, cotton chenille, silk threads, beads on silk
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    www.isabellehomercostumier.com

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media

Jennifer Wallace — Our Earthly Delights

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Our Earthly Delights' was made in April 2021 in response to Quebec Collage's open call to celebrate World Collage Day that year using a palette referencing Picasso's blue period. Selected submissions (including mine) were shown in an online exhibition: http://quebeccollage.com/projets/bleu-world-collage-day-2021/ The materials are typical of my collages: the relatively small amount of print material I acquire in my daily life plus bits from magazines passed on by my sister. This recycling of print material from my own life is a key quality of my collages. Each piece of paper selected has meaning connected to its origins as well as to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its connections with several features of our complex relationship with our earthly environment. As with Picasso's Blue Period works, images made in a very negative context can, though, hold attention long enough for us to move deeper into and beyond our first reactions of despair.
  • Date:
    April 2021
  • Medium:
    analogue collage of found papers on cardboard
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • https://www.instagram.com/whichjennifer/
  • https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100048943367967

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media

Leah Hickey — Eulogy

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    'Eulogy' is an organic lamentation upon bereavement following the very recent loss of my Father. The artwork reflects upon this sudden change with conflicting sorrow and joy, striving to illustrate a nuanced depiction of a man reluctant to share. Within the past few years, text work has become a foundational component of my artistic practice as a means of catharsis and exorcising emotional trauma. This work stems from a larger collection of autobiographical writing I have been developing surrounding personal experiences of trauma and loss as a young woman. 'Eulogy' is to be self-published later this year as part of an anthology aptly titled 'Grief (In Few Forms)'. I had made the decision to read this work at my Father's funeral, hence the title.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Matte giclée print on paper, wooden lectern
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.leahhickey.com/

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media

Lily Victoria Purslow — Self-Reflection

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Self-Reflection depicts a personal study which considers significant life changes from the past year, and how I have adapted to them. I have referred to ‘colour psychology’ and each colour used in paint and thread refers to specific emotions: Yellow - positivity and enthusiasm, turquoise - stability, blue - healing, navy - sadness and security, purple - sensitivity, cream/white - calm and maturity, black - control and fear. Thread sequences and repetitive motifs throughout the work refer to reoccurring events, and the layering of stitches represents the complexity of the events which have defined the past year. Abstract shapes refer to constant development and change. I am hoping viewers can recognise the intricacy and complicated imagery and together with the title form their own conclusion as to the meanings behind the composition and its importance.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    calico, watercolour, thread
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lilypurslowart.co.uk/

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media

Linda Nevill — Rising

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    After a long period of near silent stagnation the city starts to rise again. Positive activity of both physical building construction but also re-building of lives out of a time of paralysis.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Mixed media collage
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lindanevill.com/

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media

Lisa Davies — Baba Yaga’s House

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    This is an embroidered artwork depicting the house of Baba Yaga, a witch often found in Slavic folklore. The story goes that she lives in an old wooden hut that struts around the forest on chicken legs. The artwork started as a pencil drawing, which I then processed through embroidery computer software. Material is then hooped up and embroidered, sections at a time. For the chicken legs, I stuck down black chiffon fabric before stitching, then used a teasle brush to pull away fibres to create texture. Once the machine embroidery was finished, I added extra detail with hand embroidery, for effects that can't be done by machine.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Embroidery on cotton
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.lisamariedavies.com

Maria Wigley — That Day

Mixed Media

Maria Wigley — That Day

Mixed Media

Maria Wigley — That Day

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Exploring metaphorical landscapes.  I am drawn towards the internal landscape. The land makes us who we are. We are part of the land, as it is part of us. The physical world but also an inner world.  A place of deep personal and sensory connection between an individual and a particular location. The work poses a sense of environment, a foreboding landscape somewhere distant. The scrambled words; traces of human tracks, and stories. Histories made, some permanent and past down, others just travel off in the wind deleted without a trace.
  • Date:
    September 2021
  • Medium:
    Paper, paint, silk, thread
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.mariawigley.co.uk
  • https://www.instagram.com/mariawigley

Michelle Foley — Standing On Your Own One Foot

Mixed Media

Michelle Foley — Standing On Your Own One Foot

Mixed Media

Michelle Foley — Standing On Your Own One Foot

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    During lockdown I felt very alone and isolated. This is a drawing of a sculpture I made examining what I was feeling by being so alone.
  • Date:
    2021
  • Medium:
    Mixed media including charcoal, sycamore leaf juice and used cooking oil
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Niki Gandy — Moment: In Flux

Mixed Media

Niki Gandy — Moment: In Flux

Mixed Media

Niki Gandy — Moment: In Flux

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    One of an ongoing series of works exploring the limitations of memory and nostalgia in revisiting a single moment of nondescript domesticity. These pieces are left unfixed to enable the image to continue to shift and distort over time, the piece literally holding its own memory.
  • Date:
    2022
  • Medium:
    Graphite-glazed/hand-finished multiexposed digitised pinhole photograph on brushed aluminium
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    http://nikigandy.co.uk

Olivier Jamin — Drawing hand – Free as a Bird

Mixed Media

Olivier Jamin — Drawing hand – Free as a Bird

Mixed Media

Olivier Jamin — Drawing hand – Free as a Bird

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    Inspired by one of Escher‘s best-known images, this lithograph of two hands drawing each other presents several of the artist’s favourite concepts. Many years ago, I heard a song called 'Free as a Bird' from the Beatles which was on the B-side album of 'Christmas Time (Is Here Again). "Free as a Bird" is a single released in 1995 by the Beatles. The song was originally written and recorded in 1977 as a home demo by John Lennon, the band's founding member. In 1995, 25 years after their break-up and 15 years after Lennon was murdered, his surviving bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr released a studio version incorporating the demo. You may be puzzled that as someone born Deaf (Artist) it does not mean I cannot hear music. I am able to hear the sounds and some of the words through use of my hearing aids. Reading the lyrics does help and give me further understanding of their meaning.
  • Date:
    20/02/2022
  • Medium:
    Hand drawn using Posca pen with colour taped and holographic/glitter hand sticker on card
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://www.ojart.net/

Paul Newman — The Last Day Revisited

Mixed Media

Paul Newman — The Last Day Revisited

Mixed Media

Paul Newman — The Last Day Revisited

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    The Last Day Revisited 2020. ‘The Last Day’ has a history, originating as a studio performance in 2012, a photographic print and a digital animation at mac birmingham in a solo exhibition ‘Stage’ 2015. The set up in the studio depicts painting related ephemera, studio detritus, and performance props including the main character ‘the man with a sugar cube for a head’. The image was composed and presented like a painting. It’s sort of a fictional self-portrait featuring several reoccurring motifs from my practice. The narrative of the artist’s studio references depictions such as Studio by Phillip Guston, 1969. ‘The Last Day Revisited’, 2020 was created during the first lockdown. Taking one of the prints I had at home, I painted over the photograph, adding new elements of abstraction, and intertwining the relationship between the photograph and painting. The result is a darker, queasier version of the original…
  • Date:
    2020
  • Medium:
    Acrylic paint on C-Type photographic print
  • Category:
    Mixed Media
  • Website/s:
    https://paul-newman.net/

Rachel Doughty — Loss

Mixed Media

Rachel Doughty — Loss

Mixed Media

Rachel Doughty — Loss

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    This art work has been made from textiles, linens and small found objects from my parent’s house, found whilst clearing their house last year when they both died within 6 months of each other. The very process of the handling of the cloth, manipulating it into soft sculptures and adorning it with found objects is part of my healing process. In much of my work the process of making is just as important as the final outcome. The forms within this piece are made by hand stitching and stuffing and then the use of needle sculpting alters the forms. Some of the forms need repairs where the fabric is worn or have been hand stitched which not only decorates but attaches found and recycled objects. These forms are then stitched together and although some consideration is given to composition, the shape of the final piece evolves in a very organic, unplanned way. The cathartic process continues and I will be making many more sculptures in homage to my parents.
  • Date:
    December 2021
  • Medium:
    Textiles, found objects, polyester stuffing and thread.
  • Category:
    Mixed Media

Ruth Radcliffe — Painted Ladies

Mixed Media

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

Sally Butcher — Uncovered Covers VIII

Mixed Media

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 Butcher — Uncovered Covers IV

Mixed Media

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/

Sharon Baker — Folding 1

Mixed Media

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/

Sophie Huckfield — Break The Frame

Mixed Media

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/

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

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

Vivien Hew — All fur coat and no knickers

Mixed Media

Vivien Hew — All fur coat and no knickers

Mixed Media

Vivien Hew — All fur coat and no knickers

Mixed Media ×
  • Artwork description:
    ‘All fur coat and no knickers’ is a collage of my photos of Birmingham printed onto canvas overstitched with free machine embroidery ,then refined with acrylic paints . The gorilla has a real ‘fur coat’ but the title could also apply to humans. Our 1st impression is that the gorilla is a menacing presence .A more nuanced look shows an alternative possibility. The bemused gorilla is in Birmingham, inciting terror and panic amongst the inhabitants, most of whom have never actually met a gorilla but whose perceptions are based on the fake image of brutish gorillas running amok in films like ‘King Kong’. Ms Fossey, a naturalist, who lived with gorillas for 13 years, described them as’ altruistic’ ‘shy and gentle’ and also ‘one of the most maligned animals.’ The humans ‘go ape’ at the sight of this calm , passive ape, yet ,ironically ,it is the humans who pose more threat to the gorillas globally by encroaching onto their lands , poaching , and driving them to the edge of extinction.
  • Date:
    8th February 2022
  • Medium:
    Canvas , Print, Embroidery , Acrylic Paint
  • Category:
    Mixed Media