Young Artist Club

Young Artist Club 2021 was a 27-week project aimed at young people aged 14-18 based in Angus who met each Saturday, 10am-3pm. Participants were recruited through an open call process, and through our  local partners and was an opportunity aimed at young people who have barriers to accessing arts.

Young Artist Club is an opportunity to work alongside artists and try new things out. The key aim is for the participants to recognise their own creativity and form a peer group with shared ambitions and ideas.

This year’s Young Artist Club starts on 7 May 2022 and runs for 20 weeks. It is led by Dundee based artist Becky Brewis, assisted by DJCAD Art & Philosophy student Persy Russell. They bring their own art skills and creativity to the weekly project, working in a fluid way that allows the participants to help shape the direction the weekly meet-ups take.

2021 Young Artist Club was led by Dundee-based artist Amy Jones, assisted by Arbroath-based Kristina Aburrow and Rachel Simpson.

If you are interested to know more please email Kirsten@hospitalfield.org.uk or call 01241 656 124.

Please read our Safer Spaces document.

Young Artist Club 2022 is funded by the Power of Youth Fund, Angus Council

Young Artist Club 2021 was funded by the Youth Arts Fund, Creative Scotland

Block One – 2022

May – June

In the first few weeks of Young Artist Club 2022 the group got to know Hospitalfield a little better, working in groups to make Pictish standing stone drawings using stencils rubbings and frottage from textures around the garden. Week Two saw the group inspired by the carvings in the house to make their own self symbols in soap and the following week they explored mindful looking, abstract painting and Miksang inspired photography, a form of contemplative photography that asks us to see our world in a new way.

The group continued to make work inspired by the house and collections at Hospitalfield. Inspired by the tapestries in the historic rooms, Young Artist Club worked individually with colourful paper weaving and on looms, and then collaboratively to make woven compositions with found and natural items and wool. Then in a two-week sculpting project, the young artists worked with clay from observation to make ceramic cakes and fried breakfasts which they painted and installed in the historic dining room. Another sculptural project – this time mixed media – saw the group turn 2D images from paintings in the Picture Gallery into big 3D objects.

Block Two – 2022

July – August

In their first printmaking week, the Young Artists made lino prints inspired by geometrical shapes in the fernery. The following week, they made coil pots, decorating them with sgraffito, and creating impressions of found objects in clay tiles decorated with slip.

Throughout the summer, the group continued to explore creative drawing techniques, including big collaborative drawings and making concertina sketchbooks for a drawing trip to the Mortuary Chapel. At the project’s half-way mark, Young Artist Club had a day-trip to Dundee, where they visited exhibitions at the DCA, V&A and Generator, where they learned about artist-run spaces and got inspired by the gallery’s zine collection.

The following week we explored the club’s values, coming up with a joint statement and designing a bespoke font for a Young Artist Club zine. The group explored monoprinting processes and personal identity before making a selection of prints for publication. The zine was professionally printed ready for Hospitalfield’s annual Beer and Berries festival, where the young artists led workshops with members of the public, ran a competition and did reportage drawing documenting the day.

Block Three – 2022

September – Exhibition

On another trip, this time to Arbroath, the group headed to the beach for some experimental outdoor sculpture, casting in sand with plaster. Then a research trip to the Abbey to see the Arboath Tapestry, followed by a sewing lesson in the Scriptorium, was the inspiration for a two-week textile project back in the studio, making narrative embroideries with applique.

Building on their casting skills and experience with mixed-media sculpture, the Young Artists made moulds with clay and coloured plaster and contrasted this with making light hanging sculptures out of more ephemeral materials. The following week, using a hand-drawn animation process, the group made a collaborative film about travelling across an imagined landscape.

The following weekend was the culmination of the project. Downstairs, the group made a set for their video installation and hung their drawings and prints, while ‘Young Artist Club Upstairs’ saw their sculptures, carvings and written responses to the collections installed across across the historic rooms.

In a final collaborative project and ending ritual, the group made ‘Clootie Well for Hospitalfield’. Drawing on Hospitalfield’s early history as a place of healing and pilgrimage, and linking this with the ancient celtic tradition of making wishes at holy springs by tying pieces of cloth to nearby branches, the group transformed the Victorian fernery into a colourful grotto, installing their textile work and making weavings using the metalwork on site. Each member of the group tied a final ribbon and made a private wish for themselves and the following day they invited visitors to the exhibition to do the same.

We are pleased to announce artist Becky Brewis as the Lead Artist for Hospitalfield’s Young Artist Club in 2022. Becky will be joined by Art Education Assistant Persy Russell.

Becky Brewis is an artist from London now based in Dundee. Her drawings, textiles and installations explore how the past permeates the present, psychologically and materially. She won the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation Bursary (2021) and Degree Show Purchase Prize at ECA where she completed an MFA (2021), having previously studied on the Royal Drawing School’s funded postgraduate programme (2015-16).

In 2018-19 Becky was artist in residence at the Centre for Philosophy and Visual Art at King’s College London. She was selected by Tina Keane for Visions in the Nunnery 2018 and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017. She has been awarded residencies in Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, at Hackney’s Space Studios and in Scotland at Dumfries House, Embassy Gallery and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.
Becky has taught at the Royal Drawing School, House of Illustration and the Barbican, London.

Persy Russell is an artist based in Dundee, currently studying at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art & Design – in the final year of their Art & Philosophy degree. Working within both visual and textual poetics their practice primarily employs drawing, printmaking and ceramics. This work often engages with such disparate ideas of dialectical imagery, abjection and the radical transformative power of magical thinking. Recent projects include a magical wish granting clay fish, a book of ritual-poems about the sun & moon and lots of drawings of things that don’t yet exist.

They are also an associate committee member at Generator projects, as well as assisting in Cooper Gallery and volunteering at Dundee Ceramics Workshop. Persy is thrilled to be a part of Young Artist Club and have the opportunity to help young people develop themselves. This role is an opportunity for Persy to prepare for the type of career that they want to build; which would include both contemporary art and working with young people in some capacity.

Images

1. Becky Brewis bio image
2. Surgery Waiting Room in about 1995, detail courtesy Becky Brewis
3. Blink and Headpiece install courtesy Becky Brewis
4. Balms courtesy Becky Brewis
5. Persy Russell bio image
6. Install shot courtesy Persy Russell
7. Install shot courtesy Persy Russell

May – June 2021 (6 weeks)

The Young Artist Club were introduced to Hospitalfield and explored the gardens, building and history as a place for artists to be creative and come together. Hospitalfield has long been a place where young talented artists from Arbroath and Angus have come to learn and be creative. Each workshop in block one introduced new materials, technique, and genres including mark making, printing and ceramics. The artists are encouraged to explore new ways of expressing through making and begin to form a visual language tool box.

June – July (6 weeks)

The Young Artists try their first durational project working to develop and explore ideas influenced by alternative portraiture. inspired by Hospitalfield’s history and collection artists are challenged to think about their identity, who we are, what makes them unique and how they would represent that using alternative portraiture.

August – September (6 weeks)

Over the Summer the young artists spent time visiting exhibitions and different organisations in Dundee, learning about artists and artist run spaces. They worked alongside artists Bik Van Der Pol, Anna Orton and Alison Brown taking part in a costume making and performance at the Signal Tower Museum. They learnt how to make wax sculpture that became brass padlocks as part of  Sally Hackett’s Padlock’s of Self Love project and they were shown and explored examples of artists who work collaboratively.

Photos courtesy of Jeni Reid

October – December (8 weeks)

In the final block, the Young Artist Club worked with Lead Artist Amy Jones, and Arts Assistants Kristina Aburrow and Rachel Simpson to learn about artist manifestos and pursued their ideas to work collaboratively towards an exhibition to showcase their work.

Inspired by the works of artist collectives, they explored how these groups join together to have a unified voice through the medium of banners and artists manifestos. Using cyanotype printing onto fabric with artist Jeni Reid, tie-dying and sewing they built elaborate banners that represented what Young Artist Club meant to them. The ceramic works made were displayed in our restored Victorian Fernery, prints and drawings in the house, and family and friends attended the unveiling of the manifesto banner at Hospitalfield.

Photos courtesy Jeni Reid and Cara Pirie

We are pleased to announce artist Amy Jones as the Lead Artist for Hospitalfield’s Young Artist Club.  Amy will be joined by Art Education Assistants Kristina Aburrow and Rachel Simpson.

Amy Jones is an artist and curator based in Dundee she graduated from the Fine Art department of the city’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in 2010. She is the co-founder of Dundee Print Collective in 2013 and currently the organisation’s co-director and project coordinator. Between 2010-2012, she was a Committee Member of GENERATORprojects, Dundee.

Working primarily in printmaking and drawing, Amy likes to explore relationships, space and materiality through the act of considering instinct and intuition. She is interested in collaborative practices as a way of making, often creating opportunities to explore creative ideas in dialogue with others.

She has worked on creative learning teams delivering educational projects with a wide range of organisations such as; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Art Angel and McManus Art Gallery and Museum.

Some of her recent collaborative projects include; Making, EDITION FOUR (Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2017), Big Family Press, South London Gallery (2020) and Translations (Life Space, Dundee Print Collective & WCAIR, 2020) with an upcoming commission with Dundee Print Collective for Arbroath 2020+1 (2021).

In her solo practice, she was a recipient of Visual Artist and Maker Award Mentorship with Claire Barclay (2019). Residencies have included Bothy Project, Eigg (2017), THIStudio, exchange with Hospitalfield (2018) and upcoming residency at Cove Park (2021).

Kristina Aburrow is an artist based in Arbroath, graduating in Contemporary Art Practice from Gray’s School of Art in 2019, Kristina works in ceramics, film and photography, Kristina received the Angus VACMA award in 2021. Kristina has worked with young people and the community in various ways over the last four years. She was the lead artist on the Arbroath Murals Project for Arbroath 2020+1, artist at The Hideout, a summer school and ceramics class and previously delivered workshops as part of Hospitalfield’s Free Drawing School. Some of her recent exhibitions have included Salt Jadar at Art North Digital Exhibition (2020), International Exhibition – Sim Artist Residency, Reykjavik (2020) recipient of the June BP Fine Art Award – First Place (2019) and Remote Host, Grays School of Art (2019).

Rachel Simpson is based in Arbroath and is currently studying Design for Textiles (Print) at Heriot-Watt University, Galashiels. Her practice focuses on print design, using both digital and screen-print techniques, but she also loves illustration and collage. Her inspiration comes from the nature world, and she likes her work to be joyous and imaginative. Rachel was the recipient of  a commendation from Bradford Textile Society and was featured in a collaborative zine titled ‘Quarantine Zine’ during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020. Having grown up in the Arbroath area, she’s passionate about encouraging other young people to see the possibilities within art & design and wants to give back to her local community.

Images:

1. Bio pic of Amy Jones
2. In February Living Stood Still by Amy Jones
3. Bio pic of Kristina Aburrow
4. Quaich by Kristina Aburrow
5. Bio image of Rachel Simpson
6. Tapir by Rachel Simpson