Kate Whyles

A curator is expected to act as a thinker, a writer, a content producer, a manager of projects and, above all, a provocateur.
Kate Whyles was a curator who currently works in digital technologies, working towards a Masters in computer science. She studied foundation art and design at Nottingham college in 1997 where she attended the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts London to change people's thoughts on art. Studying at Nottingham College helped her gain a place at Fine Art BA (Hons) at Nottingham Trent University just as the BA/Britart movement of the 1990s was taking the art world by storm.

Thus secured a year's placement at the Royal Academy, where her mentor was Tracy Emin, and worked closely with Marc Quinn. Her practice was sculpture in resin. Which assisted with the preservation of "The Compete Marbles" collection.

"These marble sculptures were made with traditional marble masons in Pietrasanta, Italy. They are partly inspired by the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum and other classical, fragmented or damaged classical statues such as the Venus de Milo at the Louvre. Neoclassical in appearance, they present images of 'incomplete' bodies, of people who have either lost limbs due to an accident or who were born with a disability. By adopting the language of idealism, they relate to images of 'idealised' beauty that Neoclassicism sought to represent but also highlight the fact that while the notion of an incomplete body is something that is celebrated and acceptable within the context of art history, it is not always so in real life. These works explore the contradictions between our outside appearance and inner being, celebrating imperfection and the beauty of different kinds of bodies as well as the strength and vitality of the human spirit."

(Selma Mustajbasic - 2000)

Whyles assisted Gilbert and George with the 'Dirty Words pictures.' The Dirty Words Pictures juxtapose graffiti swear words and slogans with disturbing images of urban life and the bleak presence of the artists themselves. Relentlessly exploring aspects of 20th-century turmoil, the pictures reveal much about the changing face of urban living and shifting attitudes towards sexuality.

This helped her to be able to rent her first gallery space after obtaining her degree and created the 'This is Art' gallery located on Stony Street which is now find Oscar and Rosie's restaurant. This was a derelict post office so it took ALOT of work to transform it into an exhibition space.

Next came a live art event in collaboration with local events company I'm not from London entitled Little Wolf Parade. I collaborated with local performing artist and good friend Rachel Parry, to create a one-off evening of experimental and immersive experiences. For £5 per ticket, we sold out within two hours.

Artists included Simon Raven, Adam Rose, Emerald Ace and David Flint.

After graduating in 2001, she became the curator of Castle Fine Art Galleries here in Nottingham. A family-owned, then fledgling company that expanded across the UK as the demand for affordable fine art within the home grew. A retail and commercial curation experience that developed over the period of 6 years. Nieve art and investment opportunities were popular.

Represented artists including Lorenzo Quinn, Mackenzie Thorpe, Rolf Harris, Govinder Nazran and Eve Arnold.

Suzanne Golden

Suzzane Golden, originally from Merseyside, is a visual storyteller who communicates messages, emotions, narratives and information in a way that reaches viewers at a deep and lasting level. Which is delivered through rich visuals, recorded from the real world or created by visuals and visual thinkers. Since graduating in Fine Art at Leeds University in 1997, she has worked predominantly in the art business and within curatorial roles. She had recently revisited her practice and wanted to use her experiences of working in the art world to work on her practices.

In 1995, at the age of 19, she travelled to the Middle East, like Israel, Egypt and Sinia, followed by Malaysia in 1996. 2 years later, in 1998, she moved back to London, she stayed with her sister for a little while in Lewisham before she got her first job at London transport in Isle of Dogs. Her first art-related job was working for a stabilisation unit London arts, in 1999, at the age of 23.

Eventually moving on to work at Sotheby's, as the Valuation Manager, she managed the volunteer programs. And used to work with the specialist arts teams to build content and saw some big sales. But was not happy to learn that only northerners worked there and based on parent status too. Because of this, she returned to London arts in 2001, later to become the arts council.

She has worked for various departments including:

- Capital (monitoring a small portfolio)

- Grants and Finance Team (supporting financial systems and grant payments)

The main role was for the Visual Arts team:

- Key tasks included setting up grants for the arts (part of a bigger team). Presenting seminars and Q&As for G4As at Artquest, Craft Council and the MR RCA professional dev talks etc.

- Specialised in arts and disability/design and crafts. Worked on projects like Museumaker.

Events:

- Co-curated and project-managed the artworks in the Arts Council London Office Building

- Worked closely with Mili and Richard to provide admin support. An opportunity to gain sector experience outside of the funding structure

- Jerwood Artist Platform Exhibition Assistant (May 2006 - April 2008)

- Curated an exhibition production course (Central Saint Martins) in 2005

      - Produced a magazine called IDEA involving 70 artists, organised a 3-day exhibition in Hackney and presented at the 'Publish and Be Damned' Art Book Fair.

In 2014, Golden moved back to Nottingham. After being employed by BACKLIT, she continued to work at Foyle Foundation part-time, as well as have a full-time job to provide for her 2 children.

Role at BACKLIT, Co-director:

Overview

- Mental Health, Environmental, Digital and EDI

- Professional development - Artist Community

- Pending Collective, Lumina Collective and GEM

- BACKLIT archive

Specific projects

- REMARK

- Mental Health Toolkit

- Art NEST

Golden has said that she enjoys paper cutting and how you can manipulate drawings, digitally or with mixed media. We see this while looking at her works, we see that she has worked with paper cutting frequently.

Diana Ali

Diana Ali is a visual artist, independent curator, FA lecturer and creative mentor who has loved art since childhood. Born in Rusholme, Manchester, she lived in Bangladesh from 2 years old, to 6 years old. When she was too young to go to school, she would play and create things with mud outside, her love for using the material would be used in her foundation degree, as it connects to her roots. Diana has a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University and a Master's in Contemporary Fine Art Curating/ Practice from Sheffield Hallam University.

For her pieces of work, she would experiment with different types of media, digital, text and food. Whilst creating a piece of art called 'Spiced,' which is spices and foodstuffs on canvas by hand, you could smell it rather than see it up close. But once the use for the art was not needed, it could not be preserved, so it was left in the garden, and Ali took a picture of the process of the canvas turning back to white.

'Chocolate Triptych' is created in a similar way to 'Spiced.' The processes and applications use cooking techniques such as mixing, melting, sprinkling and blending. The work has a physical approach in its application and the unpredictable combination of materials determines its outcomes. As the paintings live their appearance becomes mouldy thus concerning themes of decay and deterioration.

'Confection' is a mix of the previous techniques photographed on a canvas, but Ali uses the human body as the first canvas.

"The deceptively simple aesthetics and presentation of ‘Confection’ seeks out the viewer and entices her or him with an intangible seduction through the use of the chocolate smeared over its surfaces. The piece could be seen to fetishise the subject along both gender and racial lines. The purity of the brown skin and the sensuous, unthreatening poses encourage voyeurism, yet the lack of definition and focus offer a barrier to the voyeur’s domination: the subject refuses to yield to the viewer’s categorisation or classification. Herein lies the subject’s power. The eyes look away from the gaze, but in doing so they represent a refusal to let the subject be knowable, rather than fear, nervousness or submission. What is she thinking or feeling? Ecstasy? Sorrow? Reflection? Some form of introvert and self-aware pleasure, certainly. She is both seduced and seducer as she draws us in to interpret or guess at reasons for her pleasure, unaware of being watched yet self-conscious in her passive seduction. The subject seduces the viewer by offering an image of seduction."

Georgia Fry

Georgia Fry is an artist living in Nottingham, a "Jaqueline of all trades", her eloquence and intellectual speech elude her existence and she is left with a mass of vulgar forms and characters spanning concrete, paper, thread and film, a fan of creating wearable objects with embroidery and dying materials that show identity.

At the age of 11, Fry moved to a small village in Spain, but she would realise that she would not be doing as well as she should until one of her teachers suggested an art school outside of the village, but soon dropped out as it did not work out, she liked working in her first year, but as the second year came around, she started to feel more overwhelmed. Despite feeling like she didn't fit in in Spain, she came back at the age of 18 after studying a foundation art course at Nottingham College, even though she disliked her final art piece. Yet she enjoyed working with colours and patterns, making it look decorative, and different materials, but she felt that drawing was the easiest technique, as it is easier to control. Even if she wishes to be less controlling of her work in the future, to embrace the chaos.

Patterns can be seen in the use of floristry, which Fry also has an interest in, this gives the idea of her enjoying being in the outdoors. Floristry is an art form that concerns the production and commerce of flowers. Within the trade are included a number of disciplines, including floral design and display and flower arranging.

Her partial inspiration was to do something different, like non-art related things, so that ideas can come along, but her main inspiration for her pieces of art was religious imagery, Islamic imagery in particular. Religious Islamic art has been typically characterized by the absence of figures and extensive use of calligraphic, geometric and abstract floral patterns. Typically, though not entirely, Islamic art has focused on the depiction of patterns and Arabic calligraphy, rather than human or animal figures, because it is believed by many Muslims that the depiction of the human form is idolatry and thereby a sin against God that is forbidden in the Qur'an.

(Detail of Mosaic tiles from Isfahan Mosque, Iran.)

The influence of these patterns has been worked on by Fry to the extent of her being able to use her art more in the public eye, such as in the shop front of forty two. 

Raphael Daden

Raphael Daden, originally from Somerset, is a Nottingham/UK-based sculptor working mainly with light. At Loughborough College, he learnt how to create different things with unique forms of creation, such as casting and welding. He started working with resin, acrylic, and glass while casting parts of the landscape reflecting the essence of the natural environment in urban spaces, he mainly started with wood in 2010. He has been combining different materials with light for over ten years and has been working professionally on commissions. For example, his first commission was a series of giant illuminated 'Cones' on West Street, Brighton, using translucent polyester resin, steel and light. The solution to thinking of what are the best materials to use for outdoor sculptures is to think of how the said sculpture would be maintained for as long as it is on display, such as resin and steel can make the final product look pristine for as long as it is properly maintained.

His works are economically good, as having more cash means companies have the resources to procure capital, improve technology, grow, and expand. Daden was commissioned with an amount of money to work with.

Daden has used a plethora of materials, such as resin, stainless steel, and stone to create a piece made of such material called The Levels, created in 2021. This sculpture was made for Weymouth Art Trail with the theme being water, the theme consists of levels relating to the sea levels rising and looking into its effects on our planet. The Levels artwork is made from stainless steel and resin, which is 40% plant-based and the most eco resin on the market. It was worked with poet Aly Stoneman in the development of a poem.

Aly Stoneman is a freelance community arts producer currently working with Adverse Camber (and previously with Pedestrian, Junction Arts, Voice Magazine, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (Poetic Spurn) and Nottingham Writers’ Studio among others). She was the founding Poetry Editor at LeftLion Magazine (2010-2018) presenting live literature events, and a commissioned writer with Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, Writing East Midlands, Nottingham Trent University and more.

"Start at sea level

reckon the tide’s surge

metre by metre

over patchwork fields

blue outflanking you

year on year to the threshold of your house,

your tongue slipping

on place-names sunk

in sediment and brackish water.

your home means little to a future

of eroded cliffs, toppled

tree stumps at low tide;

roads leading nowhere.

the sea sends

harbinger gulls inland.

we must navigate

our changing world."

In 2015, Daden created a sculpture named I Can Hear You, it was inspired by Daden and the shapes and designs of listening devices used by the military in the Second World War, using basic colours and shapes to show what it represents, this sculpture inspires me to use more simple shapes, as meaning can be shaped as it is worked on. Before the invention of radar during World War II, incoming enemy warplanes were detected by listening with the aid of "sound locators" that looked more like musical instruments than tools of war.

These radar forerunners, which earned the nicknames "war tubas" or "sound trumpets," were first used during World War I by France and Britain to spot German Zeppelin airships. The purely mechanical devices were, essentially, large horns connected to a stethoscope.

(listening devices used by the military in the Second World War)

All of these separate pieces of art can show that even the simplest of shapes, colours and formations can be considered art, as long as there is a meaning to it. And I could take influence from this piece of work because of the simplicity of the shapes and colour positions. I could use heavy inspiration for a future piece of art and use the layered colouring for my own; the colour itself or the shapes formation.