Loose Environments – exhibition

Join us for an exhibition in our Project Space, featuring work by Michelle Duxbury, Oliver Getley, Maja Novak, Connor Shields and Kate Stockwell.

Loose Environments brings together the work of five Leeds based artists, created during their AA2A residency at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies during the 2023/24 academic year.

The exhibition showcases their diverse sculptural practices, and includes installation, sound and video work alongside more traditional mediums as clay and wax.

A Private View of the exhibition will take place on Wednesday 25 September from 6 to 8pm. All welcome! If you would like to attend, please RSVP to fincomms@leeds.ac.uk.

Artists

Michelle Duxbury
Oliver Getley
Maja Novak
Connor Shields
Kate Stockwell

Venue

Project Space
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
University Road
University of Leeds 
Leeds LS2 9JT

How to find us.

About AA2A

AA2A is a transformative programme that fosters collaboration between further and higher education institutions and artists while supporting students as they transition from study to employment in the arts.

Universities and colleges host up to six artists for one academic year, allowing artists the opportunity to use facilities and resources they may otherwise not be able to access. This mutually beneficial relationship enriches the academic environment, provides valuable experiences for students, and helps artists to develop their creative practice.

Find out more at aa2a.org.

 

About the artists

Michelle Duxbury

Michelle Duxbury is an artist from Leeds, currently undertaking a PhD by Practice in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds.

Her practice draws on various creative and academic disciplines working across various media including, but not limited to, embroidery, moving image, sound and immersive installation work. Often combining multiple sensory experiences, embedded with accessibility, allowing her to interrogate the in/accessibility created by traditional hierarchies in visual art. Her work considers the intrinsic link between landscape, body and identity, in individual and collective connection to landscape, and how this impacts on feelings of belonging/not belonging, drawing on her experiences as a disabled, neurodivergent woman from a working-class background.

Her work was recently selected for ‘Found Cities, Lost Objects’, an Arts Council Collection touring exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery, curated by Turner Prize-winning artist and cultural activist Lubaina Himid CBE.

Website: michelleduxbury.studio
Instagram: @alabamathirteen

Oliver Getley

Oliver Getley is an interdisciplinary artist based in Leeds, UK. His practice is concept and research driven, often working project-to-project to explore experimental and emergent creative approaches which span a variety of production methods, including; sculpture, sound, performativity, moving-image and exhibition-making.

He is interested in artist-led and DIY activity as a political approach to culture-making and the development of alternative learning methods. A recurrent interest of his work has been the development of sculptural encounters through the reverse engineering of object and site. Recent work has involved the creation of kinetic sculpture and sound devices through mapping and self-built circuitry.

Website: olivergetley.co.uk
Instagram: @o_getley

Maja Novak

Maja Novak is a contemporary artist whose multifaceted practice spans sculpture, ceramics, and installation, reflecting a deep engagement with the interconnections of landscape, ecology, wellbeing and the human experience.

Using clay as a medium for philosophical enquiry into the nature of matter, she kneads and stretches materials to the limit, exposing questions of function, (dis)order, containing, grasping, expansion, contraction, emptiness, breathing and being human.
 
At the heart of her work is a commitment to experimentation, natural body expression and community building. By integrating found natural materials and vegetation with common art materials, she highlights the primal qualities of creation while embedding and honouring the process itself, with a sense of care and grounding. Her sculptures, often hybrid and ephemeral, reflect the changing dynamics of ecosystems and serve as objects of contemplation on human interaction with nature.

Website: majanovart.com
Instagram: @majanovart

Connor Shields

Connor Shields’ practice is predominantly sculptural, taking influence from construction and demolition sites, and spaces which possess a ‘masculine’ subtext. These environments often act as ‘in-between’ spaces; sites undergoing transformation. The outcome of these sites is not of interest, but rather the interesting visual dynamics and unusual material combinations that occur through the process of constructing.

He is interested in the way objects are leaned, stacked, slumped and bound. Sandbags are a feature in current works, used throughout construction as a cheap and practical solution to weigh things down. They are often discarded, or left behind. They punctuate the city, yet often go unnoticed; part of our everyday surroundings. Through the process of casting, Shields recreates these objects in new, solidified materials. There is a play between what is real and what is not, whether that be explicit and obvious, or more subtle.

Website: connorshields.com
Instagram: @connorshields

Kate Stockwell

Kate Stockwell is a Leeds based artist with a background in the museum service which informs her practice. She makes art objects inspired by museum objects containing alternative or additional meaning. 

The collections studied are medical museums and archives. The art references the objects either visually or more typically by using the same materials. Wax is used to form a connection with anatomical waxes and in particular ‘The Anatomical Venus’. The work draws on the concepts of wonder and the uncanny.

The use of medical collections is a means of addressing issues around women’s health. In medical discourse the human body is taken by default to be the male body. When represented at all, the female body is nearly always shown as pregnant. It is argued that this historic absence and misrepresentation of women within medical discourse continues to this day, adversely affecting the care and treatments women get.

Instagram: @katestockwellart

Feature image

The toe of a boot stepping precariously into a muddy field. Still taken from filmwork by Michelle Duxbury.