Each year the School welcomes resident artists, with four new individuals joining the cohort for 2024/2025 and two rollover artists from last year, to benefit using our world-class facilities and technical expertise.
Meet the artists and learn more about the projects they will be working on during their residency:
Andrew North paints on a variety of surfaces encompassing themes of memory, time and place. Rural and urban landscapes, architecture, nature and sometimes figures are motifs that reoccur. His work shifts between moments of representation and abstraction in a painting practice that involves the entirety of picture making from stretcher construction to framing. About the residency, Andrew said:
“As a practicing artist I take inspiration from my surroundings. I am a member of a community and of wider society; I don’t want to work in the studio in a vacuum. The AA2A residency at Loughborough University interested me because it offers me the opportunity to put this into practice.”
Jessica Mason is a studio potter with a background in sculpture. She works on a traditional leach-style kick wheel and fires in a reduction atmosphere. Her work is focused on the sensitive interaction between maker and material. Exploring the dialogue between the plastic qualities of clay and its relationship to the user, she considers the evolution of each piece as being intrinsically linked to the rituals of functional ware. Looking forward to getting started, Jessica commented:
“I am so looking forward to making use of the facilities at Loughborough during my AA2A residency. Having the chance to experiment and freely explore my practise will be a joy.”
Ruby Waage Townsend is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on themes such as identity, trauma, and domestic environments. Brought up in the UK, from Dutch heritage, she intertwines folklore with lived experiences alongside familial stories, filtering reality through mythology, making the ephemeral tangible through the medium of paint. On taking up her place, Ruby said:
“Being part of the AA2A residency is incredibly exciting, it is so wonderful to be in a creative space alongside such a wonderful group of artists, as well as working alongside students in a shared space. Cross pollination is so important in the arts, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity and access to Loughborough Universities amazing facilities and technicians!”
Theo Miller is a visual artist currently focused on relief printing and letterpress. Using new technology and a contemporary approach, he produces work in harmony with traditional techniques. Exploring the possibilities of process, materiality and methods of depiction.
“I'm looking forward to spending time alongside other artists to explore new ideas and new thoughts. The facilities and the institution, staff and people within them is what I'm looking forward to being surrounded by. Hopefully I'll be utilising the papermaking facilities to make some new 'stuff'.”
Andrew, Jessica, Ruby and Theo join two of last year’s residents, Grime and Sheila Ghelani, who stay on as rollover artists.
Grime is looking to create a new series of works focusing on local working-class history and folklore. Grime wants to create more ambitious work and having access to the facilities will allow for the re-introduction of print alongside other techniques, and make temporary installations that explore labour, memory and the queer body.
Sheila Ghelani is hoping to use the experience to meet new peers and make new connections and to work on different ideas, Sheila will be working on a new work called 'Atmospheric Forces', a collaborative live artwork in collaboration with artist Sue Palmer and experimenting with various techniques for future pieces.
Find out more about the AA2A scheme via their website.