We are delighted to welcome Birmingham based artist-educator Shannon Thomson for a ‘micro-residency’ during John Beck and Matthew Cornford’s exhibition, The Art Schools of the East Midlands. Shannon will explore Nottingham School of Art & Design’s architectural, social and cultural history through the process of personal and collective collage making.
For two days, Shannon will be working within the gallery, cutting and splicing source material from our archive with photography and ephemera gathered by the artist herself.
Visitors to the gallery will be welcome to join in with the activity and create their own collages, contributing to a collective dialogue about the subject of art school pasts, presents and futures.
Shannon will return to the gallery on Saturday 25th November, 10 am – 1 pm for a session with our Saturday Art Club group. Visitors to the gallery that day will be able to observe this activity taking place inside the gallery.
As an artist and educator, Shannon Thomson‘s current body of work delves into the intricate relationship between pedagogy and creative expression, shedding light on the transformative power of arts education.
Thomson’s work currently draws inspiration from art school archives, most recently Birmingham School of Art.
Through examining archival material, Thomson seeks to unravel the complex narrative of educational systems and their influence on shaping artistic identity.
We are delighted to announce that applications are now open for South London Gallery’s (SLG) annual post-graduate residency for 2023/24.
The residency will culminate in a solo exhibition at SLG in March 2024, and will tour to Bonington Gallery in January 2025.
What is the residency?
The Postgraduate Residency is an open submission six-month residency at South London Gallery (SLG) and touring exhibition between SLG and Bonington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University.
The residency enables the production of a new body of work and a rare opportunity for an early-career artist to exhibit their work at the South London Gallery and Bonington Gallery. The residency is open to artists who have completed a period of self-directed, peer-led or postgraduate study between October 2022 and September 2023. This can include alternative, peer organised and non-accredited programmes from an institution, collective or art school in the UK, as well as an MA, MFA, PGDip, MRes.
Between October 2023 – March 2024, the recipient will receive the following:
● studio space in the SLG Fire Station;
● a £4,500 housing bursary to cover accommodation in London;
● a £5,000 artists fee and a £4,000 production budget to produce new work;
● mentoring sessions and studio visits from SLG staff, including the Director, Bonington Gallery staff, and other arts professionals;
● the opportunity to present a public event in response to their practice;
● a solo exhibition opening March 2024 in one of the SLG Fire Station galleries.
● the exhibition will tour to Bonington Gallery in January 2025, with potential for associated event(s) and partnerships with university researchers & staff.
The residency and exhibition at the South London Gallery and Bonington Gallery is generously supported by the Paul and Louise Cooke Endowment.
Criteria
To be eligible for the residency applicants must:
● have completed an undergraduate degree (anytime before 2022) and have undertaken a postgraduate period of study between October 2022 and September 2023, including MA, MFA, PGDip, MRes, alternative, peer organised and non-accredited programmes, in an arts discipline from a UK institution, collective or art school, including Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Wales;
● not be enrolled in full or part-time education for an undergraduate, postgraduate or equivalent programme;
● be a UK resident or EU resident with settled or pre-settled status, or hold a Graduate Route visa with the right to stay in the UK for the entire duration of the residency.
We are particularly interested in receiving applications from those based outside of London. Support for travel (within the UK) will be offered to those invited to interview.
To Apply
Please visit the South London Gallery website for more information and to fill in an application form.
All applications should be submitted by Monday 17 July 2023 at 12 midday. Applications received after this time will not be considered.
There will be open information sessions about the residency held on Zoom on Wednesday 12 July at 1 pm. Please email lily@southlondongallery.org to register attendance.
In January 2016 the Gallery was traced back to an open white space: a surface on which to draw and experience drawing.
Over the course of one month artists were invited to spend a period of time in the Gallery creating lines, marks and tones that explore and responding to the space through a variety of drawing processes. The exhibition celebrated the expanded field of contemporary drawing, including: paper, performance, moving image, installation, projections and three-dimensional drawing.
Artists included: humhyphenhum, Lorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Joe Graham, Andrew Pepper, Martin Lewis, and John Court.
The month started with humhyphenhum (Deborah Harty & Phil Sawdon), who were the first to enter the white space; drawing with paper and moving image to create a three-dimensional drawing that traces in, on and through the surface of the empty white space.
Lorraine Young and Catherine Bertola followed, spending two days and three days respectively on the developing drawing. The third week saw contributions from Joe Graham, Andrew Pepper and Martin Lewis.
John Court was the final invited artist to enter the space, spending three days drawing in the Gallery.
Finally, humhyphenhum returned to the space to complete the drawing and prepare for a closing night celebration on Thursday 11 February, where visitors could view the final collaborative drawing.
Performing Drawology was curated by humhyphenhum and forms part of the ongoing research project by Deborah Harty entitled Drawing is Phenomenology.
In addition to the residency, informal discussions with the artists, student workshops and outreach events also took place.
Developments in the space were recorded throughout the process on our blog.
Vantage were made available in the Gallery throughout the exhibition to encourage visitors to witness and engage with the work as it continuously unfolded and took form.
The artists welcomed responses from the public and designated specific discussion events when visitors were invited to meet the artists and to pose any questions they had about the work taking place. Below is a record of when these sessions took place:
humhyphenhum, Friday 15 – Friday 22 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Wednesday 20 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 22 January 3 pm – 4 pm
Lorraine Young, Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
Joe Graham, Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Wednesday 3 February, 3 pm – 4 pm
Andrew Pepper, Thursday 4 February
Martin Lewis, Friday 5 February
John Court, Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 February (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Tuesday 9 February, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Wednesday 10 February, 4 pm – 5 pm
humhyphenhum, Thursday 11 February
Thursday 11th February, 5pm – 8 pm
The exhibition culminated in a closing event on Thursday 11 February from 5 pm – 8 pm, whereby the public were invited to come and see the outcomes of the show as a final staged exhibition.
Bonington Gallery Atrium
Alongside the closing event we also hosted an exhibition by 400 students from Architecture and Interior Architecture at Nottingham Trent University and West Bridgford Infant School, who participated in a series of collaborative drawing workshops during the course of Performing Drawology.
The title Soft Painting aims to draw our attention to the actual physical qualities of a painting rather than acting as an introduction to an image or to suggest a narrative. Simon Callery creates paintings that communicate on a physical level. A painting can be soft or hard as much as it can be red or green.
From Monday 13 – Wednesday 29 April Simon worked in the gallery space with a selected group of Nottingham Trent BA (Hons) Fine Art students and Nottingham-based artists, to produce three large-scale works. Rolls of canvas were washed and prepared for saturation in pigmented distempers – a process where the industrial starch is removed from the canvas and the dense and highly coloured medium is washed into the softened fabric at high temperature. These worked canvasses were then hung off frames to dry before being cut up, sorted and sewn into the formal configurations of soft paintings.
From Thursday 30 April – Friday 15 May the Gallery took the form of a contemporary gallery space, where the outcomes of the making process were realised in a final staged exhibition.
We caught up with Simon at his London-based studio for a behind the scenes look at his collection and to view his work in progress:
For the duration of this exhibition the Gallery became a space for learning where the connections between the making, installing and exhibition of artwork were exposed. The public were invited to witness and engage with the entire process.
Participants shared their images on Instagram using the hashtag #SoftPainting, you can read more about how the project evolved on our Latest News page.
Summer Lodge celebrated its 5 Year Anniversary in 2014. For ten days each July, the Fine Art studios and workshops of Nottingham Trent University are transformed and play host to a gathering of thirty diverse artists.
As part of this celebration the Gallery was used as a testing space, giving the public a glimpse into the activities of the Lodgers through live stream to screens in the foyer before being used as an exhibition space.
The Lodge was a collective space in which to undertake experiments, pursue new ideas and allow unexpected leaps of imagination. Participants in the Summer Lodge came together with the aim of initiating new dialogues and critical exchange through engaging in a period of sustained studio / workshop practice.
This years participants included artists from Nottingham Trent University; Sheffield Hallam University; Bergen Academy of Art and Design; Harrington Mills Studios; One Thoresby Street; and Backlit Studios.
At the completion of the Lodge, the Gallery was opened to the public to showcase the diverse range of work created across the ten days.
Summer Lodge: 30 June – 11 July 2014 (public could watch activities unfolding via live stream in the foyer)
Exhibition: 14 – 22 July 2014
For more information, and for ongoing documentation during the Lodge, visit: www.summerlodge.org.
This exhibition brought together two artists that investigate their own subjectivity in relation to socio-political economies and corporeal boundaries. Through differing approaches each artist created a shared language through mired and inky surfaces on skin and paper. By exhibiting solo works together Kelly and Marhaug grappled to hold each other in view and create the context to embark on a collaborative project, whilst Kelly was in residency at USF Verftet, Bergen (April-June 2013).
The Seers-in Residence was a programme which engaged four researchers from Nottingham Trent University, drawn from across various departments and schools. The researchers were invited to interact with Traci Kelly’s mono print installation Feeling It For You (Perspective) to evoke their own practice and research interests.
Emma Cocker, School of Art & Design
Thursday 10 January, 10 am – 1 pm
Emma Cocker’s practice interrogates the critical potential of failure, uncertainty, boredom, hesitation, immobility and inconsistency by exploring models of practice and subjectivity that remain wilfully open or unresolved.
Joanne Lee, School of Art & Design
Thursday 17 January, 10 am – 1 pm
Joanne Lee investigates the aesthetics of everyday urban life and explores the possibilities of the essay in textual and visual forms as a creative and critical entity.
Ben Judd, School of Art & Design
Wednesday 23 January, 2 pm – 5 pm
Ben Judd interacts with and creates alternative belief systems based on observations of social groups such as witches and Morris dancers, to which he remains paradoxically both close and distant, connected and disconnected.
Dr Simon Cross, School of Arts and Humanities
Thursday 31 January 10 am – 1 pm
Simon Cross’ research engages with the representation and attending imagery of madness in the social sphere through historical and contemporary trajectories.
