“I’ve had fun seeing people like me and discussing how they curate art! Seeing other people’s thoughts and feelings about art has been a wonderful experience. Seeing other trans or queer artists has been like a very emotional mirror, it’s been lovely to see other people like me succeeding.”  - Quote from SEEN member.

As one attendee put in the chat “Much better than my usual saturday!”, we hope to all meet again in this digital space, speak with more artists from the collection, make together and along for more space to discuss the Young People’s Collaborative exhibition.

Learn more about Flo Brooks and John Walter.

The Arts Council Collection supports and promotes British art and artists by acquiring their work at an early or critical stage in their career. With a focus on innovative work made by artists living in Britain, our acquisitions policy is characterised by a spirit of risk taking combined with an informed appraisal of current practice. 

Works from the Collection – spanning video, photography, performance, installation, painting, computer animation and sculpture – are lent to galleries and public institutions throughout the country.

If you would like further information about our new acquisitions or works in the Collection, please contact our Acquisitions Coordinator, grace.beaumont@southbankcentre.co.uk or our Registrar, daryl.tappin@southbankcentre.co.uk. 

2. Can you tell us about your experience of working in the field of welded sculpture, which is often considered a particularly 'macho' domain? What barriers and opportunities did you face?

I was not particularly conscious of any barriers and I was not looking for them. I was absolutely absorbed with my subject and keen to learn as a student and as a professional I was considered to be a serious sculptor by my contemporaries and the wider art world. Maybe I was lucky to be in a conducive environment. Of course, over a career of nearly fifty years there are bound to be fluctuations of fortune and interest, disagreements and disappointments. I lost my teaching job in the 1980s and had to find other ways of supporting myself financially but I never let that, or any other difficulty get in the way of pursuing my interests in sculpture. As for opportunities, I was included in many exhibitions in the 1970s notably surveys of British sculpture organised by the Arts Council at the Hayward Gallery, and those organised by other bodies and Galleries. The art scene changed in the 1980s – a shift of interest and attention occurred – but I still managed to show my work.

Left: Katherine Gili working on Pistil, 1979. Courtesy of Felix & Spear Gallery.

5. Can you comment on the wider artistic influences of your work, past and present? Have any particular female role models, historic or contemporary, been important to you?

The painter Jean Spencer, who was part of the Systems Movement, was my art teacher at school. To her, art was not just a pastime but an enquiry to be taken seriously. Her expansive approach resonated with me and sparked my interest in art. She encouraged me to apply to Bath Academy of Art where I discovered my feeling for sculpture. She was the most significant female influence.

6. What are your perceptions of discrimination within the art world today. Many gains have been made and there are many exhibitions by women and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Is the battle finally won?

I think the artificial barriers have gone.

7. Your work was acquired by the Arts Council Collection on two occasions. How important were these acquisitions to you at the time and since?

When my work was first acquired by the Arts Council Collection it was a great confidence booster, recognition does matter. I was very pleased to sell a second sculpture because it showed that the Arts Council were interested in my direction.

Since then, my two sculptures have been shown by the Arts Council Collection many times.

Left: A short film of Katherine Gili working in her Kent studio in 2017. © Cameron Amiri and Felix & Spear Gallery.

More information about artworks and artists featured in Breaking the Mould can be found via our exhibition page.

In this episode of the Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange podcast Art Pod, artists Young In Hong and Michelle Williams Gamaker are in conversation about their artistic practices and respective works in Newlyn Art Gallery’s 2020 exhibition Go On Being So. The work was selected from the Arts Council Collection by The MBA Collective, a group of art, photography and graphics students from Mounts Bay Academy.

Click the triangle icon on the image to the left to listen to the podcast.

Sunderland Culture's Public Engagement and Learning Officer, Posy Jowett, presents a series of films looking closely at works featured in the National Partners Programme Exhibition, Received Wisdom, which challenged the notion that creativity, boundary-breaking and dynamism are the preserve of youth.

Join Posy as she takes a look at the artwork Received Wisdom by Amikam Toren, from which the exhibition takes its title.

Civic leaders, community organisers, artists, designers, politicians, mothers and Colchester business owners worked with Firstsite to present Tell me the story of all these things which examined the role of emotion and soft power in our society and how this can be used positively to connect and empower us. This artwork was one of the Arts Council Collection chosen by women of Colchester to feature in this National Partners Programme Exhibition.

Listen to Emma Howe, Programme Manager, Communities at Firstsite, Colchester, describe Hilary Cartmel’s Sprawling Red Woman, 1984. 

For Received Wisdom, Sunderland Culture developed creative challenges inspired by Arts Council Collection works in the exhibition. Girl on Liner, 1996 is a painting by British artist Rose Wylie who is known for making large paintings featuring things she sees in films, news stories and magazine pin-ups.

Download the creative challenge to make a paper doll chain of the girl on liner and her friends, dressed for a party on the ship!

My name is not Refugee at Firstsite was curated by a group of refugees and asylum seekers, working with Firstsite staff and Refugee Action Colchester, and explored what it means to find new connections in a different place, and ponder questions about our purpose, choices and morality as human beings. The group of curators worked with poet Laila Sumpton to write poetry in response to the Arts Council Collection works chosen.

Read the poems here about Prayer Meeting in Windermere, 1992 by John Kippin.

Made in collaboration with V21 Artspace, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange and Arts Council Collection, the virtual exhibition Palace of Culture offers a virtual set to discover the 10 artworks selected by children at Newlyn School. 11, artist-led workshops were commissioned alongside the exhibition to stimulate both body and mind.

Attending Stass Paraskos' art school in Cyprus was pivotal in encouraging a young Naomi Frears to pursue a career as an artist. In her workshop 'Painting, Drawing & Offsetting' she recounts the warmth and generosity of Stass as she employs various creative responses to a selection of his work. 

Join Naomi Frears in her artist-led workshop [video on the left] to create your own work of art. You can find more videos and the virtual exhibition here.

House Share was curated by Firstsite's Young Art Kommunity (YAK) and explored the changing relationship to our homes during lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic. The YAK members, all aged 16-25 years old, used the exhibition to examine how their home took on a dual role as a creative and safe space, but also encompassed feelings of being confined. As part of the interpretation, YAK members of wrote letters to the Arts Council Collection works on view, creating an imagined conversation between themselves and the art.

Click the play icon to listen to Alicia's letter to Five Heads, 1981 by Jean-Luc Vilmouth. Discover all the young people’s letters here and choose your own artwork from the Arts Council Collection to write a letter to.

Paint the Town in Sound at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, curated in collaboration with the Sunderland band Field Music, explored the relationship between art and music. Though  it was never opened to the public because of lockdowns in the UK, you can still visit the exhibition virtually through a 360° walkthrough created by V21 Artspace.

Enter the exhibition here to discover the works that offer a fascinating insight into the musical heritage of the region and provide a route to examine our own cultural identity and its relationship to class, politics and place, such as Evan Ifekoya's The Gender Song, 2014.

Seen at The Exchange in Penzance is co-curated by young LGBTQIA+ people from Cornwall aged between 11 - 19 working in partnership with The Intercom Trust and SHARP, Programme Producer at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange.

This learning resource by DECODER is aimed at educators to support learning that is inclusive of LGBTQIA+ experience, individuals, and families via the Seen exhibition. 

Download a free copy here or view the publication online via ISSU to learn more about LGBTQIA+ history, artists, terminology and organisations.

What Lies Behind at the Newlyn Art Gallery is an exhibition featuring works from the Arts Council Collection selected by a core group of 10 participants, referred to the project through social prescribing initiatives in local GP practices in Cornwall. In a series of online meetings, the group chose pieces that reflected their personal responses to the pandemic and their hopes and dreams for the future.

Click the triangle play button on the image to the left watch the video and learn more about social prescribing, the participants and their process curating the exhibition.

Leah Hickey examines themes of love, loss, and dysphoria in her work. Hickey's My Heart (2022) utilises visual material from Brian de Palma's Carrie (1976) and speaks to the artists facination with typography. "My heart is an ode to dysphoria, typified as ‘severe unhappiness, especially a person’s feelings of being very uncomfortable in their body’, associated with navigating the city."

Haseebah Ali's The Pink Route (2022) is a four colour reduction lino print in the style of an Islamic repeat pattern. Ali hints at the restriction of women's movement in the city at night and the choice of longer, 'safer' routes home. The complexity of the design is inspired by Islamic architecture and echoes the complexity of winding routes. "The print directly links into the rise of gender violence and mortality rate of young women of colour."

Helen Grundy and Round Lemon reimagine 'The River' by Dhruva Mistry (more commonly known as 'The Floozie in the Jacuzzi' by Birminghum locals), an iconic sculptural landmark in Birmingham. Surrealism, satire, and feminism collide showcasing the freedom and visibility of women in Birmingham alongside the challenges they face in Grundy and Round Lemon's And They Were Behind Us (2022). "Women from the past, present and future roam around and behind ‘The River’ in a playful and vibrant Victoria Square, celebrating the cities empowering diversity."

Oscar Murillo, Catalyst #13, 2016. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

“Murillo describes the production of his work as being part of a ‘continuous process’. What evolves in this work is an intensity of mark making where the everyday and culture collides.”

Lynn Chadwick, The Seasons, 1956. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © The Estate of Lynn Chadwick

“It suggests to me a tortured animal and a landscape of nuclear disaster ruined mountain and woodland. Created during the height of cold war, it has the unsettling atmosphere which bares all the hallmarks of what Herbert Read called ' the Geometry of Fear' Merry Christmas.”

Susan Collis, Untitled (rawl plugs), 2007. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

“I drilled some very tiny specific sized holes and concealed these works in the wall during the Breaking the Mould installation in Hull. They are incredibly intricate and delicate made from brown goldstone and onyx. I enjoyed the subtle intervention in the space, you wouldn’t notice them at first glance."

Joan Eardley, A Field of Oats, 1962. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © The Eardley Estate

"Joan Eardley's  landscape paintings of the fishing village Catterline in Scotland evoke a sense of freedom. There are wonderful photos of her painting outdoors on large canvases battling all types of weather, observing the changing landscape."

Michael Horsley, Untitled 77-78, 1977. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

“I saw this work in person for the first time when visiting the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University last week where it has been on long loan for the past few years. It is huge in size and its colourful, collage-like appearance worked so well in the space and really lit up the interior of the building.“

Carol Rhodes, Industrial Landscape, 1997. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

"Carol Rhodes was a Scottish artist known for her paintings and drawings which depict the peripheries of urban and industrial sites. Rhodes used source material including geographical textbooks, maps and her own aerial photographs to create fictionalised landscapes that always position the viewer from above, looking down. I love the complexity and psychological intensity of Rhodde’s works; in Industrial Landscapes the edges of infrastructure and inhabited areas encroach on the landscape. As with all of her paintings, it feels both ambiguous and familiar at the same time”

Rachel Jones, lick your teeth, they so clutch, 2021. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and Thaddaeus Ropac, London

"When I first saw this stunning, large-scale pastel work it pulled me across the gallery. Her use of colour is masterful, it sparked a bit of joy and made my eyes brighter. The longer you look at the work the more you get from it and I could stare at it all day!"

Emma Hart, Fork Face, 2017. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

"I love the playfulness of Emma's work, her use of materials, visual design and everyday objects. Reflecting on her own life experiences, emotions and using humour makes light of her struggles and observations. I also like that she works beyond the gallery context in the public realm."

Keith Piper, (You are now entering) Mau Mau county, 1983. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

"Textural, colourful, and bold while conveying a message, Piper's artwork centres conversations around race, gender, history, and conflict. I love the way the use of textile adds a rough dimension to the piece and subject matter."

Faisal Abdu'Allah, The Last Supper, 1995. Arts Council Collection, Souhbank Centre, London © Faisal Abdu' Allah & Clive Kofi Allen

"I have worked on his collection before and I always thought he created and captured incredible scenes. The images do not justify his photographs. I am not sure which edition the Arts Council has but I have worked on the first edition on unsized paper and they are out of this world beautiful."

Lygia Clark, Animal 1, 1969. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

"I love this piece because it is both quiet and complex. It looks like it would be lovely to handle and view from many different angles"

Lindsey Mendick, Cigs, 2020. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist. Installation view (detail) at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and Carl Freedman Gallery,

"I find this work really interesting due to its playful and endearing qualities while recounting a really difficult point in the artist’s life. After returning to her parent’s home, following a nervous breakdown at art school, Mendick was suffering from agoraphobia and insomnia, convinced she was hallucinating, seeing men dressed in black and carrying walkie talkies walking up and down her street. She later discovered that her neighbour, the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, had been poisoned. This particular sculpture portrays the artist peering out of her window at the spies below."