Artists Interaction & Representation (AIR) Council members announced and to be inaugurated this month

Following a widespread call across the AIR membership in November 2010, AIR Council now includes seven new members who join the seven co-opted artists from the AIR Artists’ advisory group.

Katriona Beales – Relocated to London in 2010 following nine years in the North West of England. Her work is deeply influenced by a migratory childhood – questions of how to site and construct a sense of self underpin much of her visual arts practice. Between 2008-10 she was an in-house artist at the Bluecoat, Liverpool. She is active in initiating artist-led projects including an international artist exchange between Linz, Austria and POST, Liverpool supported by the Arts Council England and others. She is currently working as an artist educator with Tate Britain’s new Discursive Rooms programme. She commences a post-graduate diploma in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design in January 2010.

Ellen Bell – visual artist based in South West England making textual drawings and sculptures – these can be wall-based work for gallery based presentation or temporary site-specific pieces. Her practice encompasses a wide portfolio of challenges including educative talks within the public and private sector and she has over ten years experience of teaching at a variety of levels within higher education. She is currently undertaking a practice-led PhD at University College Falmouth within the school of Performance writing that is looking at intimate communication between men and women.

David Cotterrell – London-based artist and Professor in Fine Art and Leverhulme Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University. Over the past fifteen years, his work has been commissioned and exhibited extensively in Europe, North America and the Far East. He has been a consultant to strategic master plans, cultural and public art policy for urban regeneration, healthcare and growth areas. His research has been supported by national and regional government and by independent foundations and charities. A Fellow of the RSA, he was selected for Solar Associates Artists Leadership programme in 2009.

Rosalind Davis – London-based mixed media painter creating paintings of dystopian landscapes which incorporate paint embroidery and floral-print. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005 she has exhibited nationally and internationally with work in private and public collections. In 2010 she was selected for the UKYA, ING Discerning Eye and Lynn Painters Stainers Prize. In 2009 she co-founded and launched Core Gallery, an artist-led space and community focal point. Achievements include a significant exhibition record , developing an artists career development programme, creative workshops and a series of artists in dialogue events. She is a freelance lecturer and creative practitioner and a writer with commissioned articles in a-n Magazine, as well as an acclaimed blogger on a-n Artists talking.

Steve Dutton – Yorkshire-based artist in the collaboration Dutton and Swindells and Professor in Creative Practice at Coventry University. He is a Director Of ArtSheffield and a Trustee of Coventry Artspace, and in the process of setting up Lanchester Gallery Projects ( LGP ) in Coventry. His practice encompasses to all of these things, and in particular the way that one element dovetails into and affects another. He has contributed as a writer to a-n Magazine and other publications including the Research paper: Biennials and city-wide events

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva – Her practice encompasses of national and international site-specific commissions, fellowships and residences. She has developed a respected and high-quality reputation for producing ambitious and complex works in sculpture and installation. Since graduating from Royal College of Art in 1998, she has exhibited internationally including the 51st Venice Biennale ; Swiss Embassy and World Bank, Macedonia; L’H du Siege, France; Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dublin. She has taken part in European residency programmes including Gloucester Cathedral, ArtSway, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship. Public art commissions include ‘Transpire’, St Bede’s, Bristol; ‘We Are Shadows’, Unit2, London; ‘Life Cycle’, Bristol; ‘Re|Sort’, Fabrica Gallery, Brighton; Ambush’, The New Forest. She has received many national and international awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and she is an Artsway Associate Artist.

Angela Jane Kennedy – multi-disciplinary artist based in North East England working in movement, installation, sculpture, performance, as well as painting. Her work is about process and the body. Since graduating from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1986 with a degree in Performance Art majoring in Dance she has been working independently as well as making work in, alongside and with many different and diverse communities. She has created performance works for a great variety of venues including galleries, art centres, poetry and cabaret events, street performance and schools. In 2004 and 2005 she was awarded two Professional Development grants from Arts Council England in order to undertake eight Experiential Anatomy courses in Body-Mind Centering (BMC) in Massachusetts, USA and in Germany. She continues to investigate BMC through her own work, as well as through teaching, facilitation, with other artists, and in work with children and adults. In 2008 she graduated with a degree in Creative Practice majoring in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Mitra Memarzia – West Midlands-based artist exhibiting internationally. Through a PhD in theory and practice in fine art, she has specialist knowledge of identity, displacement and representation and of the Middle East and women. Mitra directs her creative practices towards creating inspirational dialogue and exchange, working in collaboration with a broad range of individuals and organisations. Her main passion as an artist is to make work in unexpected places. She is Associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, running the Professional Practice module, Coventry University and Birmingham City University on fine art and design BA and MA courses. She is a Board member of a-n and member of West Midlands consortium CPDI – Consciously Promoting Disruptive Innovation.

Claudia Pilsl – Austrian artist based in Bristol, who shows nationally and internationally. Recent solo shows are ‘One two infinity’ at Bend in the River in Gainsborough ‘Latent Space’ at ROOM in Bristol, ’Space Encounters’ at Landesmuseum in Linz, ‘Zwischenräume’ at the Galerie im Bürgerhaus in Neunkirchen and ‘Aperture’ at Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth. She has undertaken various commissions and residencies for instance in New York and Rome. She has been awarded major fellowships by Arts Council Austria and Arts City of Bremen.

Dr Paul Scott – Cumbrian-based artist, author, educator and curator well known for research into the graphic development of ceramic surfaces and for artwork which ‘blurs the boundaries between fine art and design’. Exhibitions, residencies, projects, teaching and commissions have taken place in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA, and Vietnam. He has instigated and led several innovative collaborative artistic projects bringing together museums, research centres, universities, and the ceramics industry. His work is in museum collections around the world. He has been Vice Chair of a-n’s Board since 2000 and in 2010 completed a doctorate at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Sally Sheinman – An American who grew up on a dairy farm on the Canadian border Sally holds a BA from the State University of New York at Albany and undertook postgraduate studies at Hunter College, New York City. She worked on Wall Street after training as an artist. She has exhibited widely throughout Britain, producing touring exhibitions and temporary and permanent public commissions, working independently and in collaboration with organisations including Arts Council England, BBC and the NHS. Her work has featured on Radio 4 Women’s Hour and PM. She has lived in Britain for the many years and works in Northampton. Although a painter, Sally’s work pushes the practice of painting into new territories: it is often three-dimensional, has multiple components and relies on contributions of others to complete its meaning.

Rachel Wilberforce – Norfolk and London based visual artist working with photography, film, video and installation. Referencing issues of the residual, spectacle and liminal, her practice explores the interplay between the private and public through societal and cultural constructs; often presented to the viewer as partial narratives. She has worked with a broad range of individuals and organisations with projects including ‘Bound’ which she conceived and initiated at Open Eye Gallery in collaboration with National Museums Liverpool, FACT and Tate Liverpool. She is co-founder of Marker – a contemporary art initiative with a focus on developing self-sustainable creative practices via temporary curated exhibitions in empty spaces. She has shown extensively both in UK and abroad including BFI Southbank, Stanley Picker Gallery, Tate Modern, Freud Museum, ICA, Galerie Dana Charkasi, Your-space/Van Abbemuseum and Chaos Gallery. Her work is part of museum collections and permanent displays including the International Slavery Museum (ISM) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade.

Caroline Wright – Living in Suffolk, she works across live and visual art whilst also lecturing at universities. She has acted as mentor to emerging artists within Suffolk and has been a board member of Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery. She has shown across the UK and Europe in galleries, festivals and site specific locations undertaking residencies in Japan, Ireland and USA. Her work explores human communication, looking at the philosophical and physical aspects of information exchange and recent shows have included the Worcester Open, performances at The Junction, Cambridge and Latitude Festival. Current projects include a two year cultural Olympiad project with the collective LACE produced by London based Artsadmin and two arts council funded projects – respond/reply – a drawing and writing research project with two artists and a poet and a career development programme with Tate Modern curator Ben Borthwick. She is a member of Wysing Arts and an Escalator artist.

Joseph Young – Brighton-based sound and performance artist. His practice is inspired by the transformation of urban noise. His work has been shown variously at Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, on BBC Radio 4, at Conflux Festival and on Wall St in New York. He regularly leads workshops in the community and schools, and has guest lectured for Edge Hill University, University of Brighton, Sussex University and the University of Essex. In 2010, he co-founded public art collective Involuntary Park, which is supported and mentored by Artpoint, the Public Art gency for the South East.

First published: a-n.co.uk September 2005. Updated November 2010