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This August, Towner is opening up its ground floor studio to become an interactive workspace and creative community for artists.

Over four weeks, forty artists — selected after an Open Call earlier this year — will come together to share ideas and perspectives, form intergenerational and intercultural connections and support each other in generating new artworks, collaborations and opportunities from across disciplines and regions. Everyone taking part will then have the chance to book a space at Towner to use again, either as a group or individually in the future.

The space will be open to the public for the duration of Open Plan. It is free, drop-in event so you’ll get an opportunity to view the artist's process and artistic practice firsthand.

This week's participating artists told us a bit more about their work and what they're looking forward to about Open Plan:

My work is probably described best as "expressive landscapes," which I create using oils and acrylics. I'm planning to use Open Plan to start work on a large canvas incorporating mixed media.

instagram: @sue.baker.39904181

I work across a range of media, including drawing, painting printmaking, sculpture and film, often combining materials, methods and found objects to create mixed media pieces and assemblages. Playfulness and improvisation is important: repurposing found materials for their visual language, exploring contradictions between images and form, creating narratives of artifice, metaphor and poetry of things. I am looking forward to enriching my practice through collaboration with others, and extending the opportunity to play creatively. I would love to be widely experimental and playful and not be constrained by neatness or finish.

instagram: @lindsay.connors.90

Through life size cut-out and collaged figures I explore the often subtle forms of violence, coercion and oppression that may pervade the domestic spheres of our lives. Although these characters are shaped by and speak of past experience, I am keen to explore what new narratives and futures might be opened up for them during the Open Plan programme. I am looking forward to spreading out and hanging out, physically and mentally, excited to make some large fluid paintings.

instagram: @nadinefeinson

My work is humorous and open, layered and imperfect, colourful with meanings and connections to our cultural references and images from our daily lives, these are the little hooks. I am most looking forward to dedicating a solid chunk of time to making art for a whole week with new artists, and seeing what they do and how we can open up each others' work.

instagram: @franksusieq

I am interested in everyday and often overlooked patterns, textures and marks left by nature, industry and the movement of people. For me, the process of making is often far more important than the end result. What I look forward to with Open Plan is the idea of working with people I potentially haven’t met before, the spontaneity and the prospect of ideas and processes I might not have otherwise encountered.

instagram: @zillah_art_design 

My explorations examine the fabrication of ourselves through a collage of visual, historical and pop references of personal and interpersonal narratives. Allowing multiple perspectives that reveal contradictions in contemporary society but also the metamorphosis of ideas and beliefs. I'm looking forward to being able to work with and alongside a diverse group of local artists, where there is the time to explore each others' practices.

instagram: @hammond.ross

My current preoccupations are with finding ways to merge figurative painting with elements of abstraction, and how best for them to interact with one another. I’m looking forward to the openness that the Open Plan programme offers, both in terms of physical space in the studio and the exchange of ideas with fellow artists to help develop my practice into unknown territories!

instagram: @james_joslin

As a painter, dress-maker and embroiderer, I focus on the joy of making, allegory, narrative and following it.

instagram: @sarakerry

My first love is drawing, but post-Covid lockdowns I have enjoyed creating botanical contact prints & rust prints. My practice reflects my love of nature & explores fragility both of myself as the artist with physical & mental health disabilities, & the fragile relationship between mankind & nature. I am looking forward to meeting the other artists, & exploring the possibilities of collaborating with them to create artwork that is a hybrid mash-up of our art practices. I am also really excited about the ability to create something large, as space in my home studio is fairly restricted.

instagram: @mulholland_artist

Currently I’m interested in exploring deaf identities, sign language, deaf physical and linguistic expression in different visual art forms. I'm looking forward to interacting with other creative minded people to exchange ideas, practices and get inspiration to develop and innovate my art.

instagram: @christophersacre

For the last 10 years I have been making large(ish) scale drawings, about the idea of ‘place’ and usually referring to a trauma that occurred within that place using carbon paper and ballpoint. As my making involves many hours sitting and drawing on my own in my studio, I sometimes feel trapped by my own art, the Open Plan  programme could be a key to helping me open up my practice.

instagram: @chrisshawhughes

Learn more about Open Plan on its web page.

Follow us on instagram for updates on public events associated with the programme:

@townergallery

Week Two artists

Week Three artists

Week Four artists