Artist: Catherine McColgan
SPIT 1. Size 1.5 x 10 cm.
Description: This petri dish is one of 6 that comprises the 'SPIT' Series (2024), a series of paintings that take a literal approach to externalising the internal mixing pigments using my saliva. Left to cultivate over several days, we can visually see what form these microbes take on. In this series, my artistic practice clashes with the scientific one to an extent, and I abandon aseptic techniques for the sake of experimenting. By utilising scientific techniques I present the internal climate of my microbiome visualised for a larger audience. This particular petri dish from the series successfully grew bacteria and accurately represented my inner workings on a microbial scale. The reference for the painting was a section of a drawing of a scanning electron microscope[e (SEM) imagery of a human cell, which was further magnified using photocopying, presenting a section of an organelle of a cell painting using spit, which grew microbes. The imagery produced with this type of work creates an abstract representation of self, yet is one that would tell you more about my inner workings than what you could contrive from looking at my portrait.
Artist: Kathy Bruce
The Artist's Model.Size. 14 x 22"
Description: The artist captures the nature of the posing model examining both the interior and exterior characteristic
Artist: Emilia Couttie
@meelsandart and youtube
'Dough Embryo'. Size 210 x 297 millimetres
Description: Photographed and Collaged Bread Dough 'Dough Embryo' explores the use of the familiar material bread, to create an unfamiliar bodily form. Through this work, Emilia attempts to communicate her lived experience of her internal female body. A space with the potential to hold one thing inside another yet still exist and operate as one.
Artist: Francesca Alaimo
https://www.francescaalaimoartist.com/
Broad Shoulders. Size 97x127 cm
Description: In Broad Shoulders, the artist speaks of the conflict between how we behave and how we feel when we comply with societal and family expectations but act against our deepest needs. Acting strong helps individuals survive the pain of not being seen for whom they truly are, but the armour they wear gets heavier by the day. Strongly autobiographical, this piece portrays the moment the artist allows their vulnerability to the surface and fully openly accepts it, paradoxically becoming stronger and more in tune with themselves.
Artist: Ghada Ben Hassan
https://linktr.ee/bibidi_bobidi_boo
https://ghadabenhassan.mystrikingly.com/
Medusa. Size. 49cm x 65cm
Description: I wanted to draw my version of Medusa, emphasising the anguish of transformation into a monster as a defence mechanism. In the myth, Medusa’s monstrous form represents the trauma of external violence, particularly sexual violence. Her ability to turn others to stone is not merely a curse but can be interpreted as a psychological defence against further harm. In my depiction, Medusa is neither entirely feminine nor masculine. I wanted her to be perceived as a human, as an experience, regardless of gender which, like her monstrous appearance, becomes irrelevant in the face of the human experience of suffering. - charcoal and gold leaf on paper.
Artist: Laura Jagger
Laura Jagger is an interdisciplinary artist based in Oxford. She received her BA in Fine Art from York St John University (2021), and MFA from Oxford Brookes University (2023). She is currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University. Her work has been featured in Aesthetica Online and exhibited internationally as a prize winner for the Eleanor Worthington Prize in Urbino, Italy (2020).
Jagger’s research-based practice is concerned with materiality which embodies and articulates her exchange with the world modified by chronic illness and disability. She explores the sculptural nature of images, dissecting her encounters of pain and care, and responding with materiality embodying her encounters. Jagger’s research challenges ableist and patriarchal political ideology whilst navigating her artistic practice through phenomenological inquiry.
https://www.laurajaggerart.com
Untitled Pill Packet, 2024. Size 10cm x 10cm
Description: A fractured glass wax cast of a medicine pill packet.
Artist: Delnara El
Away from. Description: This series intimately explores the nuanced experience of enduring traumatic events from a distance, where detachment seems impossible. The choice of the collage medium is not accidental – it's an attempt to assemble reality from various sources, incorporating messages and photographs from my friends and family, personal experiences, and recent news from my homeland, Ukraine. Within a world where borders dissolve, these artworks symbolise the malleable nature of home, providing sanctuary within the intricacies of every journey. Amidst the turmoil of war in one's native land, the artist seeks stability, transforming the notion of home into a delicate thread weaving through the tapestry of past, present, and future. Even the body becomes a sanctuary amidst external upheavals, a last fortress under starlit skies in the face of war's ravages on native lands. As boundaries shift, the world becomes a home, encapsulating an entire universe. In the vulnerability of this experience and the accompanying loss, the strength of adaptation emerges, turning each step into a new fragment of home—a poignant symbol of hope and vitality amidst the ever-changing world.
Artist: Bouge Alexandra
I show the hidden, the human body and its suffering, the body without skin, and this allows me to externalise my pain, and the loss of my mother to understand the cycle of life better.
Artist: Beril Nur Denli
Autoportrait. Size 33 x 14cm (w x h). Description: Stoneware, Earthenware - 1230 C° / 2024. Tactility and the discoveries that arise from haptic sensation are the central concepts in which my process revolves, and there is an unconscious desire to unravel vague life purposes. I tend to craft rounded and dynamic forms, often incorporating intricate elements that evoke the essence of the process, either on the surface or distinct from the main body of my works. I usually don't plan my artistic process; often my hands guide me leading to new experiments. The glaze experiments and their faults exemplify some of my artistic practice, potentially eliciting emotional responses. This may mirror the audience’s emotions, evoking a feeling of security and innate intimacy.
Artist: Sharon Reeber
Something About Bearings. Size 22 x 30 inches. Description: monotype, acrylic, ink, and watercolour on paper All of us have multiple facets and shadows. These works allude to states of meditation and self-reflection and manifest visually what Carl Jung called the “shadow self.” These may be aspects of the personality or psyche that are suppressed because they are not accepted, but they also may be aspects not fully brought into consciousness or expressed. These shadows may be positive negative or morally neutral. Part of developing self-awareness is the mandate to explore, with curiosity, all that is hidden within us. Whether that elicits fear, shame, surprise, or delight, it is a necessary and worthwhile challenge that leads to growth.
Artist: Gary Willis
https://photopia.org.uk/exhibitions
“STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF (ON ONE)”. Size: 2.2m x 0.5 plus three A3 wall posters
Description: My response to the accelerating hate and divisive way our World seems to be heading - especially this year. As much of the World suffers from climate change that jeopardises us all, we seem to never learn to look after our world – and ourselves. My “Externalising the Internal” response is a photography/mixed media/installation rant… but encourages the viewer to interact and participate. Requesting them to feel free to add to the list. And some good folk did! So, the statement reads… "The STOP sign. A command to STOP. In this ever-divisive world, what do we want to STOP? STOP War? STOP Greed? STOP Intolerance? STOP Discrimination? STOP Injustice? STOP…? Space is given to view, to think, to list, what you would want to STOP. Big issues? Or something smaller, more personal?"
Artist: Sevda Demir
Turmoil. Size: 100x150cm. Description: Every action is a special case, seemingly organised, of the turmoil at its origin. We are swept up in a maelstrom that has its roots in the beginning of time, and the fact that this maelstrom has taken on the appearance of order is only to better grab us and drag us along... Chaos is being oneself and rejecting everything learned. Life is always in turmoil. A monotonous loss of light, a dull scattering in the night Moments follow one another. A flat absolute where nothing prevents things from spinning around themselves in pursuit of their own fall. Life is created in delirium and dissolved in distress. The nothingness that causes actuality to continue is prior to all absolutes. “Fifty-nine seconds of each of my minutes” I envy the object... The grace of matter and dullness... Of motion and my dreams.
Artist: Rachel Hutchison
https://rachelhutchisonart.square.site
Am I A Joke To You. Size: 60 x 50 cm. Description: This painting is my most carefully crafted joke; me when depression visits (again) me to the job market me when I’m masking me to the people who were clumsy with my emotions me to the people who didn’t apologise me to my school guidance counsellor who told me to pursue art as a hobby me when I’m told education has indoctrinated me me when people tell me I’m quiet me when I discover I have a neurodivergence at 25. the list goes on, and I think it contains things I can’t find the words for. 2 of 4 I enjoy portraiture, capturing people, faces and bodies, but what’s more important to me is a sense of community and interaction between figures. So when I paint like this it means I lost connection with that. It’s no shock that self-portraits are therefore representative of when I sink into myself when my mental health worsens. Sharing portraiture, for me, is a way of offering up myself for connection, you can observe the painting, and maybe something in you will resonate or be touched. this is why I do it. We can reconnect in the ways we overlap with one another.
Artist: Chloe Watts
Body no.15. Size: 25x30cm. Description: Stained glass and vitreous glass paint, 2024. A meditation on the artist's connections with her body, a vessel. Part of her masters thesis around life post institutionalisation, exploring existentialism and the self.
Artist: Carol Burns
https://www.artisbycarolburns.com/
The Contradiction. Size: 50cm by 50cm. Description: This piece depicts the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. This internal inconsistency causes us to move from our old familiar views to a place unfamiliar.
Artist: James Verity
https://theaccidentalpotter.etsy.com/ https://www.curatorspace.com/artists/JamesVerityCeramics?preview=true
Figure#5. Size: 19cmx19.5xm. Description: When you are overcome with rage and shame and desperately don’t want to be here anymore. This is explored through the claw marks deep into the skin and the exploding mind. When your thoughts can no longer be contained.
Artist: Pau Ling Yap
Sidelined: Bruised but Not Beaten. Size: 120cm x 100cm. Description: [Oil on canvas 120cm x 100cm] This painting was a cathartic release of the pain suffered by the artist, as victim of years of bullying at a toxic workplace. As a junior person at the office, she felt unable to report the wrongdoings of her seniors in fear of retaliation. The power imbalance was immense, and she was silenced. Her only avenue of expression was to paint. She felt naked and vulnerable to the attacks and psychological bullying. She was surrounded by stone cold people who were buried in their self-interest. They had no qualms in invading her space, trampling her peace and fabricating lies, in their selfish quest for promotion. They portray an image of polished, respectable self-assurance, yet their true colours peek out occasionally, as symbolised by the red socks. The artist was going through the motions of going to work. The tube was moving forward, yet there is no floor – there was no sense of stability. She was sidelined and bruised, yet, in her weakness, a tiny sliver of defiance remained. Quietly, she mustered just enough strength to stick two fingers up to her aggressors.
Artist: Sophie Powell
Emotional Baggage. Size: 9x 35cmx35cm cloth bags. Description: Emotional Baggage 2019. 9 tote bags collected from work conferences, internally appliquéd with physical symptoms I experience when depressed. Individual pieces are titled Slurred Speech, Non Verbal, Intrusive Thoughts, Fatigue, Memory Loss, Disorientation, Obsessional Behaviour, Crying, Weak Limbs. It’s hard to express the physicality of being depressed and even harder to remember the exhaustion when you’re out of a depressive episode looking back in. These pieces were created in a signed-off 2-week period after a breakdown. The text is cut into a unique typeface developed for this project, which I’ve gone on to use as a signature for all the text pieces I create. The textiles used to create the words are sewn from scrap fabrics sewn together repeatedly in a meditative and often obsessional way. To avoid waste the tiniest threads are preserved and stitched back into themselves. This allows me to revisit the uses and personal history of the fabrics as an aide memoir.
Artist: Marco Balbi Dipalma
www.marcobalbidipalma.it
I have been rewriting the psalm ‘De Profundis’. The video expresses and interrogates the presence and absence of Being. It is a prayer. It gave voice to the feeling of Horror-vacui, to plumb the abyss of Being. My body is an abandoned being. My soul invokes Being, to abandon itself. The two utterances, thus placed, are paradoxical. Abandonment is a dual word, meaning betrayal and trust. The action of sinking and rising into the couch seeks to express the pain of Faith. Rising and falling, folding in on oneself, is an action of hope, which perjures revelation, expresses the suffering of Belief. Believing in Self and You. The bed welcomes suffering, like the tomb death and resurrection. The Being of the everyday being, the Being of the human being, the spiritual Being. The video depicts the mortal despair of the ‘I’, the despondency that numbs, the mortal sleep that sometimes seizes us and we feel. ‘De Profundis’ is an existential affresco and at the same time, a plea for Love. Red is the colour I gave to Being.