Kelly Cumberland

Profile

I am an artist, academic and postgraduate practice-led researcher at the University of Leeds. I am a HEA Fellow and have acquired an extensive portfolio of teaching experience both at undergraduate and postgraduate level since 2001, previously BA (Hons) Fine Art Course Leader at Leeds Arts University, 2017-2022.

My research focuses on expanded drawing, process and critical relationships, cyclical, time-based repetitive acts of observing, recording and making with scientific approaches to repetitive cellular processes are employed.

These drawings are not about illustrating the cycle of microscopic life; this practice research argues that material experimentation and drawing processes offer a metaphorical or analogous way to evoke ideas around the internal body, as an attempt to transpose the theoretical into the physical.

Materials, processes, repetitive, systematic and technological modes of making are transposed from two dimensions to three dimensions to demonstrate how something seemingly delicate and insubstantial can occupy space.

Within this context, I suggest continuous addition and removal, (re)production, and reduction can result in a coherent body of structural biomorphic variations. It is through exploring drawing as a way of seeing between and within disciplines that a particular set of aesthetic qualities continue to be developed.

National and international contributions to exhibitions and presentations

• Drawing Articulations: A Radical Drawing Symposium & Exhibition, Leeds School of Arts (LSA) at Leeds Beckett University, 2024
• ‘Photo-Canopy 24 Repetition’, Burton & South Derbyshire College University Centre, 2024
• [DRAWING-RESEARCH] DRN2024: Drawing Repetition, Loughborough University, 2024
• ‘What is Drawing Research?’ Birmingham School of Art, UWE Bristol Drawing Research Group, 2023
• ‘What Is This Thing Called Material Research?’ (group) University of Leeds, 2023
• Leeds Artists Show, (group) Leeds Art Gallery, 2023
• ‘Vestigium Pulvis,’ Leeds Arts University, 2022
• ‘Cuits [fenestram],’ Mercado Negro, Cholula, Mexico, 2021
• ‘Tracing Entropy,’ Foyer Gallery, University of Leeds, 2020
• ‘Biomorfica,’ Liliput Galeria Experimental, Puebla, Mexico, 2019
• Vision of Science Art Award, The Edge Gallery, Bath, 2018 & 2020
• ‘Making Research,’ Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, 2018
• ‘Manual,’ ABA ART LAB, La Nit de l’Art International Programme, Palma de Mallorca, 2013 & 2016.

Research interests

The focus of my practice-led research centres on a trans-disciplinary project exploring the concepts around expanded practices. It also acknowledges the expansion of ''art and scientific modes of visualisation and imagination.

The aim is to advance these discussions by integrating artistic creativity with scientific visualisation techniques to interpret medical and scientific data creatively.

Drawing is a transformative medium that reconnects scientific imagery with its biological origins, making it more tangible.

This is particularly important, as scientific (raw) data is often considered detached from everyday human experience.

Currently, I am working with the Stem Cell and Brain Tumour Group (Dr Heiko Wurdak and Dr Sabrina Samuel) at St. James's James's Hospital, University of Leeds. I incorporate a range of research applications employing a variety of media and artistic visualisation techniques to examine biological (cellular and molecular) characteristics and behaviours. For example, ongoing dialogue helps us examine stem cells and stem cell-derived three-dimensional structures (organoids), focusing on how these entities interact and develop. The project also features patient-derived metastatic cancer cells and their fate in a laboratory setting, reimagining raw scientific data to challenge and expand traditional University discipline boundaries.

This science-art dialogue initiative is deeply embedded in cultural bricolage and practice as research frameworks. It emphasises the methodologies of creation and the processes involved rather than the outcomes.

Creating this hybrid space for knowledge exchange promotes mutual understanding between disciplines and enhances our perception of highly complex biological processes.

This initiative encourages closer examination of the ''invisible world'' and fosters engagement between the two disciplines and beyond the research sphere.

This approach emphasises the significance of actively engaging with both the material and metaphorical aspects of drawing. It highlights the importance of repetitive time-based acts such as observing, recording, and creating while incorporating scientific analysis of cellular processes.

Rather than simply illustrating microscopic life, I suggest that expanded drawing techniques and material experiments serve as metaphors connecting diverse fields and transforming theoretical knowledge into tangible encounters. 

This practice research enhances scientific awareness through artistic expression and enriches the quality of both disciplines by fostering a continuous interplay of creation and interpretation.

By merging art and science, I explore and visualise the holistic complexities of human life, focusing on physiology and disease.

The trans-disciplinary approach aims to demonstrate how abstract concepts can be made substantial and impactful, occupying new physical and conceptual space realms.

This expands exposure and elicits response beyond what scientific data alone can accomplish, leading to a broader and serendipitously deeper understanding and appreciation of the subject matter.

Website: www.kellycumberland.art
Instagram: @kelly_cumberland
X: @kellycumberland
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellycumberland/

Qualifications

• 2015 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• 2002, Teaching in Post-Compulsory Education and Training, University of Bradford
• 1998, MA Fine Art, Leeds Metropolitan University