About

About the exhibition

This exhibition brings together five artists selected to take part in the national Artists Access to Art Colleges (AA2A) artist residency scheme in the School of Design and Creative Arts at Loughborough University. The work on display showcases a selection of their diverse projects ongoing since October 2023.

About the artists

Courtney Askey is exploring how labour and the body co-exist within and inform the art making process. During her AA2A residency, she has identified an interest in archiving as practice and she has begun researching this through meetings, library visits and experimental works. She is developing works for upcoming group and solo exhibitions.

Emily Driver’s current practice is the outcome of experiments which aim to understand the limits of clay and how far it can be stretched/ manipulated before collapse. Without intention, these material-based experiments mirror the realities in which she finds herself as a working-class artist juggling three jobs, an arts residency and art practice. The work speaks to wider issues around the same themes of exhaustion/limits.

Grime is primarily using AA2A residency to delve into painting and printmaking, disciplines they have not explored since graduating from university. They aim to create a new body of work informed by research at the university library on historical working class radical groups and local folklore, as well as using their time to develop ideas for future exhibitions and collaborations.

Sheila Ghelani is using AA2A to conduct library-based research, attend talks, meet staff and explore the natural world on campus in order to reflect on her practice, the conditions of artistic making and extend her local network. She has also been experimenting with techniques for use in three up-coming art-works: performance/ event Atmospheric Forces, participatory activity On Rock & Air and a response to the history of gun-making in Birmingham.

Sophie Goodchild has been reframing her work visually by intuitively responding to the similar production methods and material properties that both feltmaking and papermaking require and contain. Sophie is working towards a new body of work that questions how the repeated motif of the spiral can create texture and pattern alluding to and emulating; chaos, (dis)order and cyclical movements in the mundane since her entry into Motherhood began.

During their time at Loughborough, Courtney, Emily, Grime, Sheila and Sophie will work in a variety of settings and interact with a range of practitioners and researchers. They have collaboratively designed this exhibition, as part of a process of reflection on the work they have produced and where it might lead them.

More information

AA2A (Artists Access to Art Colleges) provides artists and designer-makers with access to workshops, equipment and expertise in host universities and colleges across the UK, offering them the opportunity to develop. It is funded by Arts Council England and the host institutions.

The artists are in residence until the end of June 2024.

For more information on AA2A visit their official website here.

Opening times

Wednesday 28 February to Friday 22 March 2024, 12-2pm (Monday to Friday only). It is free to attend and booking is not required.

Accessibility

There is step-free access into the gallery via a ramp and side door. During opening hours, there will be an invigilator on duty in the gallery. If you require their assistance, then please alert them on arrival by calling to them or waving at them – the entrance to the gallery is fully glazed and the main entrance door should be open.

For more information on accessibility, facilities and getting there, please visit the event page.

Website

Booking Link