The panel of assessors that will be selecting the creative pieces to feature in the upcoming publication of the yellow book and on the music singles can be found below. Please click the images to meet the teams.
Jenny Escritt is a Photographer and Printmaker who lives and works in Birmingham.
After gaining a degree in Fine Art in 1979, where she specialised in printmaking, Jenny developed an interest in experimental photography, mostly using cameras (including pinhole experiments and Polaroid manipulation), and also exploring non-camera based techniques such as painting with darkroom chemicals and hand coloured photograms.
In the 1980s she ran a variety of photographic workshops in Leicester, which encouraged a creative and experimental approach to image making, seeking to develop ways of seeing, and helping some participants develop personal confidence.
In her own photographic work, Jenny has a particular interest in experimenting with the viewer’s perspective, using blur, reflection, focus and camera angle to spur enquiry and evoke emotional response. Content is often ‘every day’, for example: at home, walking, travelling in buses and trains.
After a gap of some years, Jenny resumed printmaking in 2009. She has concentrated on mono printing, using similar reference points to those used in her photography, and experimenting with different kinds of mark making and stencils. Recently she has been photographing the plate itself, before and after the print stage, initially to document the process but then becoming increasingly interested in the image this created in its own right. Jenny is keen to explore these growing interfaces between photography and printmaking.
Sally Waterman employs literary adaptation as a mechanism for self-portraiture, creating poetic still and moving image works that explore female subjectivity, memory and identity. Waterman re-invents the source material through a fragmentary re-scripting exercise, seeking autobiographical associations with certain images, themes, characters or conceptual ideas.
Indeed, the chosen text enables the recollection and re-imagining of repressed memories, whereby difficult, yet universal experiences of illness, conflict, loss and separation are illuminated through a cathartic transition from literature into visual art. Her PhD in Media & Photography at the University of Plymouth used T.S Eliot’s 1922 poem, ‘The Waste Land’ to examine her elusive self-representational strategies and interpretative methods.
Past group exhibitions have included ‘Shifting Horizons’; Derby Museum & Art Gallery and Midland Arts Centre (2000-2001), ‘Forest’; Nottingham Castle Museum, Oriel Davies Gallery, Wolverhampton Gallery and York Art Gallery (2004-2005) and ‘What Happens Next?’ Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery, London (2008). Her work is held in public and private collections including King St. Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvar, Hungary, the National Art Library at the V&A and the Yale Center for British Art, New York.
She has lectured at Plymouth College of Art and the University of Plymouth and was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London (2011-2012), where she organised the conference; ‘Family Ties: Recollection and Representation’.
Steven McLoughlin was born in 1970 and is a self-taught artist. Showing a serious interest in art from the age of 16, Steve initially drew pencil portraits. A flair for fine architectural drawings led Breedon Books to hand Steve his first commission at the age of 19, illustrating a series of street scenes of Old Derby. That eye for detail was also drawing Steve to wildlife subjects and also landscapes.
Steven has been painting professionally for over 10 years and during this time has become experienced in using many different mediums. He spends a lot of time on the coast, walking the North Norfolk and Cornish coastlines as well as the Derbyshire countryside where he lives.
‘I am aiming to provide an illusion of space and tranquillity by painting open skies and landscapes. I find pastels and acrylics give me the subtlety and depth I need to achieve this.’
Keith Cooper is a professional photographer based in Leicester, in the UK. As well as his fine art landscape photography he covers architecture, interiors, annual report photography, advertising and corporate events/PR for national and international clients. He also teaches, writes and lectures on photography and modern photographic techniques to individuals and companies. He specialises in bringing an appreciation of the latest technology to high quality Black and White photography.
Keith has been a renowned landscape photographer for many years. He shares Barbara Hepworth’s observation that “Landscape is strong – it has bones and flesh and skin and hair. it has age and history and a principle behind its evolution”
He says: “I love taking photos of just about anything. Some of my most personal work is expressed in my black and white landscape photography – it’s the sort of stuff that strikes a real emotional chord for me, and I love seeing it when a print on a wall just reaches out to someone else.
Lucia Masundire has been working in arts development for over 6 years working at Leicestershire County Council and is currently managing a digital research project for Leicestershire Museums.
Having studied Arts Management at De Montfort University she has lived in Leicester for almost 10 years.
Her current project Click; Connect; Curate; Create is exploring how digital (technology and media) can be used to increase engagement with museum collections this includes; publishing collections content on social media platforms, exploring 3d scanning of museum objects and augmented reality apps.
She is trustee and Senior Fellow for Arts Development UK, the professional association for people working in Arts Development and the art organisation Leicester Print Workshop
Gary Hodges is the UK’s best selling and most collectable pencil artist. He has sold over 106,000 personally signed and numbered prints from 124 limited editions. Only 11 of these editions are still available, the other 113 having sold out.
The huge demand for Gary’s prints has led to a lucrative secondary market rewarding collectors with more than just the sheer beauty of his drawings. Greenpeace published his first print in 1987 in an edition of 850 copies which sold for £8.50 each. In recent years that same print “Green Turtle” has changed hands for up to an incredible £3,500.00!
The many accolades given during his 32 year career include the “Oscars” of the published art world, the “Best selling Artist of the Year” and also “Best selling images by a living artist” (twice) all awarded by the Fine Art Trade Guild. Other previous winners include Rolf Harris, Jack Vettriano and David Shepherd.
His many thousands of admirers include Virginia McKenna, Martina Navratilova, Pam St Clement and Rula Lenska.
Gary’s massive popularity has enabled him to follow his heart and support charities dear to him. Through his art well over half a million pounds has been given back via many charities to protect the wildlife he feels so passionate towards.
Lydia Towsey is the chair of the rethinkyourmind poetry assesor panel. She is a poet and performer with a Masters in Creative Writing.
Her previous commissions include: Poet in the City’s, Spoken Word All Stars Tour; Beyond Words — U.K. tour of four South African poets (Apples and Snakes) and Sole2Soul (University of Leicester.)
In 2012 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize. In 2013 she performed at London’s 100 Club and was featured by The London Magazine.
In 2014 she UK toured ‘Three the Hard Way’ alongside Jean Binta Breeze and Alison Dunne.
She is forthcoming in Bloodaxe Books’, Raving Beauties anthology & Candlestick Press’ ‘10 Poems about Knitting’. Her full length collection, ‘The Venus Papers’ will be published by Burning Eye Books in 2015.
Lydia is Arts in Health Coordinator at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust; Chair/Compere of WORD! – the longest running poetry night in the Midlands (www.wordpoetry.eu) and Chair of Brightsparks (www.brightsparks.wordpress.com).
Jean Breese stage name Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze was born in Jamaica and came to England in the 1980s. She is an internationally renowned poet and playwright and has shaped a voice that demands attention and response.
She writes in many forms and is highly acclaimed for her artistry with the Jamaican ‘Dub’ artform.
Her words carry resonant political and personal messages and audiences around the world relate to and are inspired by her work. She is the author of six books; the latest Third World Girl was published in the UK in 2011, followed by a national tour.
Her first book of poetry, Ryddim Ravings, was published in 1988; she went on to write the screenplay for Hallelujah Anyhow, a co-production of the British Film Institute and BBC 2. She has recorded with Dennis Bovell’s Dub Band.
She has been the recipient of a National Endowment of Science and the Arts (NESTA) Award for her poetry and in 2011, she became an Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.
She suffers from schizophrenia and has written poetry about what she herself calls “madness.” In 2006, on the BBC Radio program “The Interview,” Breeze gave her perspective on mental illness and advocated increased attention to the needs of schizophrenics.
Adam Horovitz was born in London in 1971, and moved to Slad, Gloucestershire the same year.
Active as a poet and performer since the early 1990s, he released his first pamphlet, Next Year in Jerusalem, in 2004 and a second, The Great Unlearning, in 2009.
He was the poet in residence for Glastonbury Festival’s official website in 2009 and was voted onto the Hospital Club 100 in 2010 as an ‘emerging talent’. His debut collection, Turning, was released by Headland in 2011.
He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2012 and his most recent book, A Thousand Laurie Lees (a poetry-fuelled memoir about growing up in Cider with Rosie country), was published by the History Press in 2014.
He was a judge for the 2014 Manchester Poetry Prize and the 2014 Bare Fiction poetry competition.
