Stik started painting unofficial, socially conscious murals in his hometown of Hackney, East London in 2001. His simple stick figures wordlessly tell the story of his community and he frequently collaborates with hospitals, charities and homeless organisations. Working from his East London studio, these projects are largely self-funded and he now creates monumental artworks with communities across the world.
Ruby has recently graduated with a Fine Arts BA (Hons) degree at the University of East London. She specialises in printmaking, painting, photography, sculpture and installation. Her work intends to trigger ideas around the diversity and history of London from a personal perspective. Her work is celebrating the physical and emotional journey she has undertaken throughout her life.; Art supported her throughout her life in speaking and writing. At the age of five, Ruby was diagnosed with a speech-language impairment affecting her self-confidence. Through the ongoing support of a charity called Contact a Family, Ruby has grown into a strong independent and fearless individual expressed in her prints. Inspired by German expressionist art as she uses shapes, abstract colours and gestural mark-making. She is available for commissions.
As a mixed media Artist the process of mono printing, painting and photo manipulation sustains Anum Hashmi’s studio practice. Mimicking the world she documents, on it’s ever changing journey as buildings, nature and people and their communities evolve and re-purpose. Collections of photographs, sketches and maps, take life in a diverse series of mixed media pieces, engaging in a meditative cycle of layering manipulating , rephotographing and then transforming into a digital mixed medium onto fabrics or unconventional materials. They’re layered to merge within its own time capsule in an attempt to capture nature, time, and changing spaces.
In the pursuit to beautify the mundane facades of everyday life, she addresses socio economical issues that displaces people along with their communities. As a british Pakistani, her fascination lies with the idea of preserving cultural traditions and practices from heritage ,migration and faith narratives, in particular the Indian sub continent from the eye of a second generation immigrant. Anum seeks to evoke and promote a sense of unity and ethnic enrichment when people of different faith and cultures interact and intertwine based on their social positions in society, whilst still giving a voice to the under represented and relay their stories.
Nudes and nature are my most prominent source of inspiration and subject. I believe that depicting people in their most natural form expresses a sense of honesty and vulnerability. Furthermore, clothes would date the image and constrict the artwork to a precise moment in time. I try to make the era and location somewhat ambiguous and unrecognizable, because I like to create images that are both comforting with their familiarity, but also raise curiosity and questions open to each personal interpretation.
In an aim to rekindle a somewhat lost relationship with something that is fundamental to our survival and well-being, my work focuses on the human relationship with nature. Female forms are reoccurring in my practice as they too have the ability to create and bring new life to the world. For this reason, they play the role of a metaphor for mother nature herself. Furthermore, I often include animals that I have had personal experiences with and enjoy researching their symbolic meaning
I begin by roughly sketching out my idea, and then do a cyanotype print; a photosensitive chemical process which needs to be exposed in the sun. The outcome varies dramatically depending on weather conditions and time of year. I then paint over the print with acrylic paint. The cyanotype stains the canvas, whereas the acrylic sits on the surface, creating a real contrast in textures. Furthermore, it combines a natural phenomenon with a man made medium. I also enjoy playing with scale by having recognisable plants larger than the figures, as it emphasizes how we are a small part of the world and not the center, nor the most significant...
Bio: Sarah has worked in the creative industries for 14+ years as a freelance graphic designer, and has now expanded into the area of arts facilitation.
Sarah’s involvement with collective arts creation was stirred most recently while creating a mural at local mental health charity MindFood, and she went on to be a co-founder of Welcome Create, a community art group at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery.
She enjoys working with all ages, and values listening to the needs and desires of those involved to co-produce ideas, creating a sense of learning via exploration and peer-to-peer interactions, connection and increased self-confidence.
Frankie McAllister is a London based photographer from Northern Ireland. Her practice sits on the fringes between fine art landscape and documentary photography, with a particular interest in altered landscapes and the influence of man on nature, most recently including constructed landscapes and abstracted realities.
M Dillon is an artist and designer who makes mixed media collage and sculpture that might appear superficially decorative or humorous, but there is a narrative beyond the decoration that aims to provoke a specific response of disquiet.
James Barnor was born in Accra, Ghana in 1929. He began work as a photographer in Accra?s Jamestown district in 1947 where he set up the Ever Young studio, taking photographs of the local community. He also worked as a photojournalist for the Daily Graphic and Drum magazine, which led him to London in the 1960s. Beyond his studio photography and press commissions, Barnor also has an extensive archive of street reportage. After spending the 1960s in Britain, Barnor returned to Ghana at the end of the decade where he helped open the country?s first colour-processing laboratory. In 1993, after 24 years in Ghana, Barnor returned to London where he continues to live today. His varied body of photographic work documents the shift towards modern living as experienced by black people in both Africa and Britain.
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