2020–21
Step Change Fellows

AI generated image prompted by the phrase ‘Art For The Blind’ (2022)
John Renhard
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Image created by John Renhard and an algorithm

Wolverhampton University

My work revolves around the theft and destruction of other peoples work, not in a ‘bad’ way but in a ‘nice’ creative way. I take pre-existing images, videos, items, objects, ideas, whatever takes my fancy, I take them apart to find out what they are made of, to find what new objects are hidden away inside these newly broken things, to find materials I can use something new, something they were never intended to be.

Belonging II (2021)
Elisha Hughes
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Photo: Elisha Hughes

Swansea College of Art

My practice investigates a place that is forever changing. Using materials such as photography, drawing, installation enables me to ask questions, to create conversations and to be curious. I want my work to be a place of reflection, a place that I capture and a place that discovers. Receiving the Fellowship has enabled me to professionally develop my work and it has given me a platform to have my voice heard as a young female artist. I have recently had my work shown in group exhibitions at Elysium, Swansea and MOMA Machynlleth. The work featured in the exhibitions, Another Year, Another and Young Welsh Artists were an accumulation of all the research and encounters during my fellowship. A direct response from and to the local landscape that surrounds me.

Non-perishable, part of Shop Essentials (2020)
Andrew Bowen
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Photo: Andrew Bowen

Swansea College of Art

Andrew Bowen is an artist from the land that has more castles per square mile than anywhere else on Earth. The subject of his studies focuses on the current global zeitgeist; environmental, political and social issues, trends and topics. A mixed media practitioner, who uses a variety of mediums that best represents his current creative enquiry. The result is an artistic output capturing the spirit of our time that ranges from the sculptural to photographic, moving image to the painterly; with an underlying pop aesthetic simmering beneath the surface.

Ethereal Armour
Millie Barrow
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Photo: Millie Barrow

Loughborough University

To be rendered voiceless is to be dehumanized, this lies at the centre of women’s history and people in the minority. I recognise my practice as an empowerment project which aims to encourage the transformative growth from victim to victor for those who are abused by patriarchy, through the liberating power of craft and applied arts. My creations become an emblem of solidarity, empowerment, and political protest critiquing our culture.

By radicalising garments and the domestic space with language that disrupts the viewers thinking and perception, the use of confrontational and factual linguistics allows me to confront the discrimination in our society and challenge the viewer to second check themselves. The stitch transmutes into the voice of victors as it asserts dominance and challenges the power norms in our culture.

Spreading
Delphi Campbell
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Photo: Delphi Campbell

Cardiff School of Art & Design

My work could serve as a guide on how to make yourself ridiculous. Through my work I strive to deliver raw but humorous self-portraits, demonstrating exaggerated and multifaceted versions of the self, navigating different copies of myself to try and satiate this curiosity/obsession with my presence on this planet, what I feel and what I look like while I sit on it. Recently I have been focused on exploring my sexuality, my disability, and how these aspects become representative of my whole self.

I use soft-sculpture, fabrics and stuffings for their pillowy femininity, their bare fleshy feeling and comforting tactile experience.

I try to choose my materials by balancing what I can easily get my hands on, what doesn’t conflict with my moral alignment, my environmental concerns, then the cost. Alongside these deliberations I consider how the aesthetic of my chosen materials will sit in the work. I typically recycle materials from previous works, use found objects or pre-loved fabrics. This has become as an important part of my practice as the outcome of the objects I make.

Yeside Linney (2021)
Joshua Donker
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Oil paint, image transfers and graphite on board
Photo: Joshua Donker

Cardiff School of Art & Design

I describe my practice as visual storytelling. Within my work I aim to capture individuals’ personal stories and experiences as openly and honestly as possible. My work revolves around race, identity, ancestry and transcultural experiences, particularly focusing on the African diaspora across the Western World. Within this context, my work aims to explore both the struggles and advantages associated with African Ancestry while also seeking to break away from oversimplified and prejudicial stereotypes that exist around ‘black identity’.

By telling people’s stories I hope that my work can emphasise the complexities that exist within “black identity” while also exposing a wider audience to a range of different experiences, perspectives, and cultures.

I am predominantly a portrait painter but I also incorporate elements of photography and audio within my work.

South Asians — Let's Talk About Mental Health (2021)
Aabidah Shah
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Photo: Aabidah Shah

Wolverhampton University

Aabidah Shah is a Pakistani photographer. Born in Long Island, New York and raised in Birmingham, UK. She has graduated with First Class Honours Degree in Photography at the University of Wolverhampton. Winner of the 2020 Prestigious Kodak Award of Excellence in Analogue Photography.

Shah focuses on diversity, by bringing different ages, cultures, ethnicities, religions and genders together, photographing the beauty of inclusivity. Shah has photographed individuals in her lockdown project, ‘Digital Distancing’ which connected people across the world in solidarity during these tough times. Due to the attention and success of the project ‘Digital Distancing’ has been printed as an exclusive limited edition photozine.

Shah has taken the experience from her own abuse and used that to support and encourage other women in a series of portraits and statements by survivors of sexual abuse.

Shah has exhibited with PH Collective at Vivid Projects (2020) and for Wolves Women’s Day at The Light House (2020). Featured in SOURCE Photographic, Express & Star, Art Gallery 5’14 and Disgraceful Magazine. Interviewed on Switch Radio and Encore Pop & Influencer.

Plant Furniture — small (walnut) (2021)
Ross Mountford Designs Ltd.
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Photo Ross Mountford

Staffordshire University

During my time on the ABF Fellowship, I have been fortunate enough to achieve a multitude of different goals, personally and for my business.

Throughout the course, I was lucky enough to have access to the relevant workshops, this enabled me to design and make my latest body of work ‘plant furniture’. With the security of the ABF, I was able to take risks within my design and try new concepts, knowing that once the course had ended, I would not be lucky enough to have the accessibility to a workshop for a while.

I was also fortunate enough to be shortlisted for a ‘Young Furniture Makers’ award and chosen to showcase my work at my first independent design show. Both opportunities were possible because of my time on the program and allowed me to grow in confidence and establish myself as a Designer Maker, I am now looking forward to applying to upcoming design shows this year.

Towards the end of the course, I set up my design business (Ross Mountford Designs Ltd.), I feel that the skillset and confidence I acquired from having the freedom on the course to create my own designs, gave me the motivation to do this.

Statement (2021)
Tiggy Beaman
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Photo: Tiggy Beaman

Loughborough University

My name is Tiggy Beaman, I’m a figurative nude artist specialising in the theme of body confidence. My practise promotes body celebration, acceptance and raises awareness of mental health in an aim to desexualise the nude within art. I work closely with people to create personal and inspiring paintings that gives them confidence as well as inspire and encourage positivity and kindness.

As a woman, painting other women is more personal, my relationship with anyone I paint runs deeper, I can relate more to struggles women face with their bodies in society and social media.

I constantly try to create work that impacts the viewer and help someone’s self-confidence. I work with volunteers who come forward to be a part of my work which gives a huge range in diversity and body types. I am currently exploring more abstraction within my painting technique, using bolder colours and materials on larger canvases to really exaggerate and create impact for the viewer.

Earth Rush (2021)
Amy Jackson
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Photo: Amy Jackson

Staffordshire University

I’m a ceramicist and potter based in Stoke-on-Trent, the ‘World Capital of Ceramics’ — where I was born and bred! I specialise in hand-throwing and slip-casting, as well as glaze development and application.

My work is influenced by the many mesmerising aspects of the natural world and the great outdoors, finding beauty and inspiration in our everyday. I work in an experimental and expressive manner drawing together different methods in order to produce new forms and exciting visuals.

I offer both bespoke pieces and small batch production.

Acrylic painting (2022)
Anne Knight
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Photo: Anne Knight

Liverpool Hope University

Anne Knight’s work explores shape, form, colour and expressive mark-making, inspired by many things including architecture, coastal living and mid-century textile design. She experiments extensively with colourful surfaces in both textiles and ceramics, often transferring design ideas from one medium to the other. Drawing upon her visual influences from everyday life, she intuitively develops playful surfaces — a personal visual language that ranges from simple line illustrations to bold, colourful, abstract patterns.

Knight’s work includes interior products such as lampshades, cushions and other artworks. Overall, her intention is to offer vibrant, uplifting objects and surfaces that would create distinction, warmth and ambience in people’s homes.

Home (2022)
Kia May Page
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Photo: Kia May Page

Liverpool Hope University

The works produced during this residency have seen the artist attempt at every stage to undermine the preconceived conventions of the mediums he works with, whether this is ripping out segments from a large scale copy of Goya’s 3rd of May 1808 and re-sowing it onto a blank canvas, reimagining childrens colouring books as gruesome scenes from Christian martyrdom or fly postering the faces of individuals. The artist attempts always to subvert the expectations of the audience and call them into a deeper conversation around materiality.

Statements around such things are only possible to make if the artist has freedom from the patronage of certain markets, this is what was provided by the ABF and the artist’s practice is substantially enriched as a result. It is the deeply held conviction of the artist that art objects are statements and not commodities, that it is entirely necessary to combat post-modern processes recontextualising art objects at every turn until they manifest a use within the market. It is to redefine the art object from the prizes of investment portfolios to the organic and expressive inter-play of the masses, it is to seek an artworld whose focus has shifted from property to provocation.

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