Drawing Conversations 4 -Speakers

Professor Jill Journeaux

Email: j.journeaux@coventry.ac.uk

Jill Journeaux is Professor of Fine Art in the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, at Coventry University, where she has worked in a variety of roles, including Dean of Coventry School of Art & Design, since 1997.

She is an artist researcher with particular interests in the representation of physical, emotional and psychological realities through autobiographical narrative. Her key interests are the female body as an experience of inhabitation, the crafts and artifacts of domesticity as content and process for fine art practice, and notions of home. She realises her practice through drawing and stitching, examining the space between art and craft, and the relationships between the decorative and the domestic. Her drawings are in public and private collections in the UK, USA, Portugal, France, Germany and the Channel Isles. Recent practice projects include Enid Marx Celebrated, an interventions style exhibition that ran throughout 2018 at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, UK. Curated by Journeaux it showcased new work by six artists created in response to the Marx-Lambert and British Folk Art Collections at Compton Verney Art Gallery.

Her published research considers the evolving nature of fine art education, the teaching of creativity and the shifting place of fine art within the academy and includes:

Journeaux, J., Montero, P, and Mottram, J. (2017), ‘Higher Education Fine Art in the UK and Spain since 1992: A study in perceptions of change in two universities’. Journal of Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education (ADCHE), Vol.16, No.2, pp.217-239

Journeaux, J. and Wade, S. Eds. (2015) GLAD 25 Years On, A Special edition of the Journal of Arts, Design and Communications Higher Education, Vol.14, Issue 2, Intellect.

Journeaux, J. and Mottram, J. (2015) Creativity and Art Education; gaps between theory and practice. Chapter in book in The Science of Thinking section, in ‘Multidisciplinary Contributions to the Science of Creative thinking, Creativity in the Twenty First Century’, Eds. Corazzo, G.E. & Agnoli, S., Springer.

Journeaux, J. The Art Schools; questioning the studio, guest editor, special edition of Journal for Visual Arts Practice, Routledge.

Jill Journeaux convenes the Drawing Conversations symposia, exhibitions and publications and co-edited Collective and Collaborative Drawing in Contemporary Practice (2017) with Dr. Helen Gorrill, and Body, Space, Place: Drawing Conversations 2 (2020) with Gorrill, and Dr. Sara Reed.

Dr Simon Woolham

www.insearchoftheshortcuts.com

Email: s.woolham@hud.ac.uk

Simon Woolham is a lecturer in Contemporary Art at the University of Huddersfield. Simon graduated as a painter from Manchester Metropolitan University followed by an MA from Chelsea College of Art in London. Simon’s practice as an artist, curator and teaching specialism is centred around expanded drawing and this was the focus of his practice-led PhD from 2012 and awarded in 2016 at Manchester Metropolitan University. The PhD explored walking (in the broadest sense) and narrative in physical, virtual and psychological space, expanding on the notion of an artists’ residency of the mind. Simon has exhibited widely, including a residency and solo exhibition at The Lowry in Salford and Chapter Gallery in Cardiff, as well as numerous national and international group exhibitions. In 2008 Simon was included in the first Tatton Park Biennial and in 2006 he was Artist-in-Residence at Baltic - Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, he won the Mostyn Open 11 at Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno in 2001.

Simon continues to develop his practice as an artist and researcher and since 2012 he has been curator and artistic programmer of the artist-led gallery PAPER in Manchester. Simon has presented papers at conferences both nationally and internationally, most recently at ‘Mapping Culture’ a conference in Coimbra, Portugal, and the ‘Deep Mapping’ conference at UCL in London. Recently, Simon lead a project called ‘Art Work Placement’ with the innovative Arts organisation Fermynwoods Contemporary Art in Northamptonshire, whose ethos is ‘infiltrating the everyday’. The ‘Art Work Placement’ project is directly informed by Simon’s particular area of research, generating narrative, and also explores how artists’ processes and ideas can shed light on traditional institutional practices. In this instance, Simon tested virtual and digital platforms with employees of a mental care institution, in relation to histories and sense of place.

In 2019 he has been working with Drawing Projects UK with a self-initiated residency and exhibition called ‘Drawing out The Canal’ and in 2020 he is bringing the already established conference series ‘Drawing Conversations’ called ‘Drawing Conversations: Engaging with sites of history and narrative’ examining the relevance of expanded drawing methods in a variety of social contexts.

Katy Suggitt

Katy Suggitt is an artist whose practice of expanded drawing is concerned with how the encounter with site, is repositioned philosophically, ethically and / or aesthetically by the climate emergency. She is currently an active member of Manchester’s Rogue Artists’ Studios and has exhibited and worked with institutions including The Bluecoat Gallery, The Open Eye Gallery, Islington Mill, Manchester Museum and The Whitworth Museum and Art Gallery. As well as engaging with audiences through the exhibition of her work, Katy also leads collaborative workshops as a means of generating dialogue on the subject of our connection with the so-called natural world.

After achieving a Degree in Fine Art at the University of Central Lancashire she went on to study for a Masters in Media Art at Manchester Metropolitan University. Katy is undertaking practice-based PhD at the University of Huddersfield where she joined the School of Art, Design and Architecture in February 2016. She is currently a lecturer on the Contemporary Art and Illustration BA(Hons). Her work with postgraduate students has included Masters supervision, PGCE mentorship and facilitating practice-led workshop sessions for the Masters in Digital Design.

In previous roles Katy has led interdisciplinary, international projects involving undergraduate students to Namibia and South Africa, including an exhibition at Cape Peninsular University of Technology.

Professor Anita Taylor

Anita Taylor is Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee. She is the founding Director of the foremost annual drawing exhibition in the UK, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize [since 1994], and Drawing Projects UK, a public-facing initiative dedicated to drawing [since 2009]. After graduating from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art [1987], she became Artist-in-Residence at Durham Cathedral [1987-88], then Cheltenham Fellow in Painting [1988-89]. She has extensive teaching, research, peer and expert review experience in the UK and internationally, and her academic leadership roles have included: Executive Dean of Bath School of Art and Design at Bath Spa University; Director & CEO, National Art School in Sydney, Australia; Dean of Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London [UAL]; Director, The Research Centre for Drawing at UAL; and Vice Principal of Wimbledon School of Art.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Witness, Young Gallery, Salisbury [2018]; DRAWN, The Customs House, South Shields [2017]; William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney, Australia [2014]; The Drawing Room, Sydney [2011]; Peter Pinson Gallery, Sydney [2009]; The Drawing Gallery [2009, 2004]. Her drawings have been included in recent exhibitions at Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London (2019); The Global Centre for Drawing, Langford120, Melbourne [2018, 2013, 2011]; Jerwood Gallery, Hastings [2016, 2014]; V&A London [2009]. Awards include the Malvern Award for Drawing [1993]; Drawing Award, Hunting Art Prizes 1999; and First Prize, Hunting Art Prizes 2000. Her work is held in public collections, including the V&A and Jerwood Foundation.

She has curated a number of exhibitions, including Drawing Breath [London & international tour 2006-08] and Drawn Together for Jerwood Gallery [2014] in relation to milestones within the Drawing Prize project, and has organised solo presentations by Barbara Walker [Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, 2018-19], Lyndal Jones [The Holburne, Bath, 2014], Cao Fei [Bath, 2013], Sheela Gowda [Sydney, 2010], and the exhibition programmes at Drawing Projects UK since 2015.  Co-author of Drawing [Cassell Illustrated, first published 2003], she has written on drawing and creative practice for The Guardian/Observer, Craft Arts International, Guardian Culture Professionals Network, and Garageland; interviews with her are featured in After Nyne [2018], Interalia [2016]; Studio International [2014]; Times Higher Education [2013]; and Artist’s Lives, Oral History Collection, National Life Stories in the British Library Sound Archive.

Deanna Petherbridge

www.deannapetherbridge.com

Deanna Petherbridge CBE is an artist, writer and curator whose practice is centered around drawing.  A major retrospective of her drawings was held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester during 2016-17 accompanied by the publication Deanna Petherbridge: Drawing and Dialogue, 2016. Professor Emerita, University of the West of England, she has held three professorships in drawing including the Royal College of Art (1995-2001). She is the author of The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice, Yale University Press, 2010 as well as numerous books, catalogues, articles and published lectures dealing with historical as well as contemporary issues in art and architecture. Exhibitions that she has curated include the Hayward touring exhibition The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, 1997;  Witches and Wicked Bodies, National Galleries of Scotland & British Museum 2013-15 and Artists at Work, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 2018 as well as a number of displays of contemporary drawings.  Her most recent drawings are multi-panelled large-scale works dealing with issues of war, forced migration and environmental destruction: the triptych The Destruction of the City of Homs, 2016 is currently on exhibition at Tate Britain in the Walk Through British Art: 60 Years. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Warburg Institute, University of London and will take up a Fellowship in the USA towards the end of 2020.

Layla Curtis

www.laylacurtis.com

Layla Curtis is a British artist whose practice has a focus on place, landscape and mapping. Her multi-form work examines the attempts we make to chart the earth, how we locate ourselves, navigate space and represent terrain. She is concerned with how we map borders and boundaries, both real and metaphorical, to define territories and to establish a sense of place. She explores how we perceive, make use of and interact with the spaces we inhabit. Often, she seeks to understand place by examining its connections with elsewhere.

Previous works include online interactive drawing www.polarwandering.co.uk which uses GPS to track the artist’s 27,867-mile journey to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey in 2005; Trespass, (2015) a mobile phone app which uses geo-location and geo-fencing to tell the story of land ownership in Freeman’s Wood, Lancaster; Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast (2008) a series of films which use thermal imaging technology to make visible the heat-traces left by parkour practitioners as they journey across the urban landscape; online archive www.antipodes.uk.com (2013) which pairs live webcam images from places on exact opposite sides of the planet; and immersive video and sound work Tong Tana (2012), a point-of-view film made in the Borneo rainforest whilst the artist visited the semi-nomadic indigenous hunter-gatherers, the Penan.

Curtis’ work features in several international collections including the Tate Collection, The New Art Gallery Walsall collection, Bodleian Libraries Map Collection, and the Government Art Collection.  

Her work is exhibited widely and has been included in exhibitions such as Living History at Tate Modern, London, UK, and the Hayward National Touring Exhibition, You’ll Never Know: Drawing and Random Interference. Solo exhibitions include those at Spacex, Exeter (2013); Matt’s Gallery, London (2012); Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (2008); The New Art Gallery Walsall (2006); Gimpel Fils, London (2006); and Milton Keynes Gallery (2000). International exhibitions include those at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing, France; Pavilhão Lucas Nogueira Garcez-Oca in São Paulo, Brazil; and Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, Canada.

Commissions and residencies include The Great North Run Moving Image Commission (2014), which led to a solo exhibition at The Gallery, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (2015); an Arts Council England International Fellowship to Antarctica (2005/6); and commissions by Film & Video Umbrella, Art on the Underground and Turner Contemporary. Curtis was artist in residence at Akiyoshidai International AV, Japan and selected for the Artangel Open Longlist 2014.

Layla Curtis is the founder of Edgework, an artist-run, cross-disciplinary journal and online store with a focus on place.