Join us for our November online artist peer group!
Established in 2015 our artist peer groups are an opportunity for artists exploring health and wellbeing in their practice to gain feedback and support on their projects, ideas or challenges that they are facing. The space is for active feedback, meaning that artists aren’t sharing finished works, but asking for specific support from others attending the session. Together we pool resources and provide feedback in a supportive environment.
Our presenting artists are Sophie Doyle and Lottie McCarthy. Read on for more information about their work.
Want to share your work at a future group? Fill out our application form.
Cost.
Free / Pay What You Can (suggested £5)
Image: Sophie Doyle
About Sophie Doyle
Sophie is a fine artist based in London. Her art serves as a powerful ode to the female form, emphasising body and skin positivity. Sophie has lived with psoriasis for more than 14 years. Creating art and posing nude has allowed her to gain a deep appreciation and understanding of the beauty and uniqueness found in every individual's body. Sophie’s art aims to empower and inspire women, encouraging them to embrace their bodies with comfort.
“Primarily I use oils and acrylics, exploring textured brushwork and vibrant colours. I am currently working on a painting and drawing series on skin conditions and psoriasis, experimenting with skin texture and how this can be represented. I am looking for feedback on how I can push the project further and how I can experiment more with materials and compositions.”
More about Sophie:
Follow Sophie on Instagram: @sophiedoyleart
Image: Lottie McCarthy
About Lottie McCarthy
Lottie McCarthy creates proudly mad, beautifully bonkers spaces, situations, and encounters. She aims to unearth the joy in vulnerability, otherness, and uncertainty in her mental health disability and neurodivergence. Mediums include beanbags, hungry hippos, textiles, sculpture, prints, illustration, writing and music. Lottie creates work in ways that create space for safe, dignified vulnerability which fosters kinder, more curious, and less scared states of being, using discarded materials and broken things in new ways.
Lottie’s work has been exhibited at the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, House of Annetta as part of the Whitechapel Gallery’s Nocturnal Creatures, The Bargehouse, Margate NOW festival, Candid Arts, and published by Cuckoo Publishing in partnership with the Wellcome Collection and We Are Unlimited.
I'm working with Contains Art, at East Quay in Watchet, and Bridgewater's Mind Art group, to co-create a re-imaged kids den acting as sanctuary in times of mental health dips. Where do you want to be when you're having a wobble? What would your inner child want to see, hear, or do in your den? Will we create, using thrown-out and discarded materials, and a wonky mentality*, a place to go when you're going mad that brings pride, joy, and compassion. A celebration of mad pride demonstrating that mad isn't bad.*Wonk mentality: is working intentionally wonky. Born from protest pillows/beanbags/cuddly toy-like sculptural hybrids I began to make when I was going crazy, using throw away materials and "auto-sewing" They are made without a plan, not worrying about straight lines and instead concerned with bringing joy. Each WOnk is a unique call to stop denying pleasure for the sake of perfection. Reframing “mistakes” and “imperfections” they are an embodiment of a disability justice/mad pride aesthetic, a catharsis to the harshness of existing in a neurotypical ableist society, made by an artist who is too tired to line up seams or sew straight lines. WOnkS are an act of resistance and self-care. They are also completely joyful, fun, weird, wonderful, and beautiful.
More about Lottie:
Follow Lottie on Instagram: @lottiemccarthyart