Artist-in-residence 2024

Championed by patron Tiffiny Lendrum

Béatrice Lebreton is a French native artist now based in Harlem. Inspired by the African Diaspora, her multicultural heritage and current events, she creates work that encourages the viewer’s engagement and interpretation.

She primarily works in mixed media, combining textiles, stitched and beaded surfaces with painted sections on the canvas as a means of commemoration and interaction. The patterns, fabrics, and beads become a focal motif that add a tactile touch and fuse into what she characterizes as a language stretched between the limits of the imaginary and the history.

Storytelling is important to her practice, as evidenced by the use of combining text into the composition. She engages the viewer visually on multiple levels and create a curiosity to examine the information embedded within the work. She celebrates womanhood, shatters the stereotypes women are born into and illustrate growth and change. Her art carries connotations of identity, social discomfort, feminism, representation and transformation.

Béatrice received a Masters of Fine Art from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris and a Masters in Ethno-aesthetic, majoring in African Art from La Sorbonne University. Her work is in private collections throughout the United States and France.

Artist-in-residence 2024

Championed by patron Katy Wickremesinghe

Bobbye Fermie (b. 1990, Amsterdam, NL) finished the postgraduate degree ‘The Drawing Year’ at the Royal Drawing School, London in 2015 after completing her degree in Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. She has participated in artist residencies including Porthmeor Studios (2021, 2023) and Hafod Residency (2016) and has exhibited with Oliver Projects, Blue Shop Cottage and at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Her work is held at Soho House and The Royal Collection and in private collections across the UK, US and Europe.

Bobbye Fermie’s practice is an ongoing response to themes of isolation, personal boundaries and social anxiety.

Her work expresses a found juxtaposition between the public space and the private space. The paintings and collages explore an imagined world for a shapeshifting character that act as a way of processing internal emotions.

She is currently working on her first solo show with Wilder Gallery, opening in spring 2024. She lives and works in London.

Artist-in-residence 2024

Championed by patron Christina Makris

Irini Bachlitzanaki was born in Athens, Greece in 1984. She studied History of Art at UCL and Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts and most recently the Royal Academy Schools in London.

Solo exhibitions include ‘just us on a different day’ and ‘Emergent Qualities’ at Elika Gallery, Athens; ‘The Combination Show’ at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge and the forthcoming ‘The Consolation of Imaginary Things’ at Ione & Mann, London. Her work has also been displayed in several group exhibitions in Athens, London and elsewhere, in galleries, museums and independent art spaces.

Recently awarded Scholarships and Grants include the Arts Council England DYCP grant (2022), the ARTWORKS Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship (2022), the Jerwood 1:1 grant (2021), the RA Schools Dunoyer de Segonzac Prize (2021), the Wolfson College Graduate Prize (2021), the Gilbert Bayes Scholarship (2020) and the NEON Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies (2017-2020).

As an extension of her artistic practice Bachlitzanaki has curated a number of exhibitions and is interested in occasionally pursuing curatorial work in line with her artistic research. She lives and works in London.