Clémentine Bedos (Chair of a-n Artists Council) is an artist, researcher and educator based in London, who has a background in law and philosophy. Clémentine’s performance, video, installation and site-specific works draw on their own mixed heritage (Haitian, Gypsy, Kabyle, French), weaving together ancestral and digital processes to explore the multidimensional oppression of marginalised bodies and communities. Visit Clementine’s website
Mollie Balshaw is an artist and curator. They are the director of Short Supply, an arts organisation bridging the gap between early career artists, mentors, curators and opportunities and a Board member for Islington Mill. They understand the challenges artists from queer and lower socio-economic backgrounds face and create opportunities for artists to network and advocate for each other, as well as maintain their own practice. They’ve delivered recent projects with HOME, Manchester Art Gallery and Contact Theatre. Visit Mollie’s website
Exodus Crooks is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist, educator, and writer whose practice centres on the relationship with self. Based between the Midlands and the north coast of Jamaica, their art exists alongside their educational role. With themes of care, tenderness, and reimagination at the core of their practice, Exodus uses gardening, text, filmmaking and installation to further explore indigenous thought. Their art and education experience can be seen in their work with Ikon Gallery, Vivid Projects, The New Art Gallery Walsall, Film and Video Umbrella, Iniva, and Ort Gallery x International Curators Forum. Visit Exodus’ website
Simon Lee Dicker is based in Somerset. His work explores a discordant relationship with landscape, the marks we make on the natural world, and what it means to be a human at the beginning of the Anthropocene. From intimate drawings and transient installations to event-based social activities, Simon’s practice is sustained through both solitary practice and social production – working with community groups, educational institutions and the museum and heritage sector. In 2011 he co-founded OSR Projects. Visit Simon’s website
Freya Dooley is an artist based in Cardiff. Her practice incorporates writing, sound, moving image and performance to explore forms of synchronisation and discord between voices, structures, and bodies. Interested in social connection and tensions between personal and collective experiences, Freya often works with other artists, researchers, and musicians. She was awarded the Creative Wales Fellowship at the British School at Rome, Italy in 2021 and a Wales Venice 10 Artes Mundi commission in 2022. Visit Freya’s website
Sarah Francis is an award-winning Welsh-born artist based in Leeds. Her work explores ideas of reality and representation, by gathering and relocating particular events that were once lost, forgotten or left behind and reworking them with found objects, wood and paint. Sarah concentrates on intertwining traces of dreams and memories to create physical landscapes and portraits, building her own language and worlds to explore and understand ‘how I made me’. Visit Sarah’s website
Ross Head is a visual artist, exhibition organiser and educator, working with painting, curation, ceramics and printmaking. The human condition and questions of identity are central to his work, which reflects on the lived experiences of queer people. He will study MA Fine Art at Slade School of Art 2022-24 and was recently awarded a scholarship to research queer histories in Ancient Greece at British School at Athens. Visit Ross’s website
Sae Yeoun Hwang is an artist based in London whose works function as non-linear visual stories. She is interested in humour and how it functions, questioning what makes something funny and who gets the joke. She also uses humour to diffuse the heaviness of a subject and explore its role as a defense mechanism. Her work explores the thin line between personal experience and universality. Visit Sae Yeoun’s website
Jannat Hussain is a London-based interdisciplinary artist, creative facilitator and recent graduate from MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Her practice orientates the space between internal realities and outward expression, where her close observation of the self and interpersonal moments translates highly emotive responses. Her current concerns lie in unpacking different forms of intimacy, while exploring clay, sculpture and performance art together. Visit Jannat’s website
Yva Jung’s work begins with a particular way of observing the external world. She works mainly with installation, moving image, drawing, and improvised encounters, and her practice is an ongoing, reflective dialogue with daily experiences and everyday objects that she subverts to add stories to. Yva studied Fine Art in Seoul and New York before receiving her practice-led PhD from Slade School of Fine Art. Yva has been awarded many grants including from Arts Council England and the Arts Council Korea, and her work has been exhibited in contemporary art institutions globally including CAFAM Biennale and Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival. Visit Yva’s website
Jenny Mc Namara (Vice Chair of Artists Council) is an artist/designer based in Newcastle who explores visual mindfulness and the effects of colour and pattern on mood. She has been awarded funding by Arts Council England to produce her work. Jenny runs The Spaghetti Factory with Eve Cromwell, which supports artists in the North East. She is the grassroots art representative for The Clayton Street Corridor, a board member for Round Lemon and works at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art as Producer (Communities) on Neighbourly, a programme which uses creative processes and welcoming practices to support people seeking sanctuary to rebuild their lives in the North East. Visit Jenny’s website
Tom Pope is a multidisciplinary artist based in Hastings. Play is at the core of Pope’s practice; it is both subject matter for his works and also embedded in how he utilises photography and performance. Tom’s work is held in public and private collections and he has been commissioned to make films, photographs and performances internationally. Recent shows include Terminating Martin Parr at ArtHouse Jersey and Carreau at COLDENS, St Leonards. Visit Tom’s website
Liv Penrose Punnett is co-founder of Haarlem Artspace and Assistant Curator at Artes Mundi. Her arts practice includes printmaking, installation, film and projection, and her works are held in the British Library, The Tetley, The Ruskin Archive, and the Tate Library and Archive. Liv is a lecturer in Fine Art, part of curatorial project MuSE and holds an Arts and Humanities Research Council Award, the SIA Gallery Award and the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Award. Visit Liv’s website
Alys Scott-Hawkins is an artist based in Southampton who works with drawing and moving image to tell stories about lived experience. Her film work has won multiple awards at international film festivals and recent exhibitions include Eastside Projects, Birmingham, King’s Place London and SPUD works, New Forest. Alys worked for 12 years as an animation director, Senior Lecturer and ran artist development activities. She is a freelance specialist in artist support, helping other artists to develop their projects and apply for funding. Visit Alys’ website
Melanie Wheeler is an transdisciplinary artist based in Nottingham. Her practice moves across installation, film, research, social practice and curating. She uses participation and storytelling as tools to explore uncertain territories and create space for different realities to meet and interact. Melanie is interested in encouraging collaboration across disciplines and communities and in testing the functions of creative practices to find new methods for care and exchange. Visit Melanie’s website
Pushing for real change
a-n Artists Council invited live illustrator Katie Chappell to capture their first Zoom meeting. The resulting friendly and engaging illustration is a visual reminder of their introductions to each other and their aims, objectives and values as a cohort.
Image
1. Members of a-n Artists Council 2023. From left to right: Yva Jung, Freya Dooley, Simon Lee Dicker, Liv Penrose Punnett, Melanie Wheeler, Sae Yeoun Hwang, Exodus Crooks, Mollie Balshaw, Tom Pope, Jannat Hussain, Alys Scott-Hawkins, Jenny Mc Namara, Clémentine Bedos. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes; Courtesy a-n The Artists Information Company
2. Mollie Balshaw. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
3. Clémentine Bedos. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
4. Exodus Crooks. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
5. Simon Lee Dicker. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
6. Freya Dooley. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
7. Sae Yeoun Hwang. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
8. Jannat Hussain. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
9. Yva Jung. Photo Joel Chester Fildes
10. Jenny McNamara. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
11. Tom Pope. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
12. Olivia Penrose Punnett. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
13. Alys Scott-Hawkins. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
14. Melanie Wheeler. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
15. Artists Council, live illustration: Katie Chappell