Artist Interviews, with artist-curator Helen Dryden
Featured image: 'Eye Mask' (2020) by Holland Otik. Image provided by the artist. Holland Otik is a maker whose creative practice focuses on figurative artefacts and mask making with links to rituals, healing and shamanism. From her studio/shop in Hereford, Otik researches contemporary and traditional magical practices, and imbues her work with symbolic meaning. She often makes... Continue Reading →
Header image: Performative Act.003 Damaris Athene (2021) - all images courtesy of the artist, unless otherwise indicated. Damaris Athene is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice takes in painting, printmaking, sculpture, performance and photography. She is fascinated by the ways that the digital world affects our perception of our bodies and our interactions with others. Damaris... Continue Reading →
Header image courtesy of the artist Isobel Finlay is a contemporary artist who works in sculpture and drawing, creating organic forms and installations with mesh-like structures constructed from chainmail, crocheted fabrics and plaster. Winner of the Vanguard Court Studio Prize in 2019 (for recent graduates of Camberwell College of Arts), she has exhibited in group... Continue Reading →
Header image courtesy of the artist Eleanor Louise West (she/they) is an emerging artist and a recent graduate of Camberwell College of Arts. Mainly working in textiles using quilting, embroidery and crochet, the interdisciplinary artist explores their experiences as a queer woman. West’s solo exhibition ‘Feels Like Home’ at Compact Contemporary imagines the gallery as... Continue Reading →
Above image: Harmonize by Melissa Procter, 2021 Multidisciplinary artist Melissa Procter presents a series of miniature mixed media sculptures in her solo exhibition 'Balancing Act' at Compact Contemporary, from 1st - 22nd March 2021. Procter uses materials not traditionally used in fine art, preferring those more commonly found in DIY stores. The artist's practice involves creating abstract assemblages, sculpture and... Continue Reading →
All photos provided by the artist. All artwork by Joe Bean.Joe Bean is an artist I met through urban sketching with Sketch That, though Joe is a prolific artist and also helps run the much larger and well known Urban Sketchers Yorkshire group. Urban Sketching means drawing from life, in public places like cafes, train... Continue Reading →
This interview was first published on May 5th 2018 on Helen Dryden's Patreon blog. above: Jonathan in his studio Jonathan Hooper paints Leeds. I first noticed his paintings when I saw he had painted my favourite post war shopping mall in the Northern part of Leeds city centre; the Merrion Centre. The Merrion is infamous... Continue Reading →
This interview was first published on April 15th on Helen Dryden's Patreon blog. Rachael Elwell makes highly detailed line drawings on paper using pencil and ink. The repetitive yet slightly differing marks come together to form a textured plane that is a record of the time and labour expended. Looking at Elwell's hypnotic mark making... Continue Reading →
This interview was first published March 20th 2018 on Helen Dryden's Patreon page. Above - Phill Hopkins at 'X', Left Bank Leeds. This photo and all photos used in this article were taken by Tim Balls. Phill Hopkins first came to my attention when I was browsing Instagram and his 10 year retrospective exhibition 'X'... Continue Reading →
This interview was first published on November 13th 2017 on Helen Dryden's Patreon page. In this series we have a chat with artists and illustrators from Leeds and West Yorkshire, in the hope to spread the word about the good stuff going on in this place. This time artist Ian Cockburn answers the 10 questions.... Continue Reading →
