Receiving the Dover Prize would mean more to me than words can fully hold. As an autistic artist, much of what I create stems from a raw, intuitive, and emotional place. I feel the world in a harrowing intensity; art is the vessel through which I breathe and stay afloat.
Through the Dover Prize, I hope to immerse myself in this opportunity. Every part of my being hopes to fully absorb into the livelihood of art, and I believe this immense bursary could grant me that.
Hopefully, I’d use the funding to support the unpicking of the lament held that lives in the everyday; grief that is held in gestures, routines, and unspoken expectations.
I want to speak with women about their lives, their inner worlds, their losses, their joys, and their roles. I believe that through researched listening, I can make work that reflects these truths in a way that feels both personal and shared. I’d also use the funding to connect with other neurodivergent artists. Understanding how they create, cope, and communicate will guide me in building a practice that is sustainable and authentic to my rhythms and sensitivities.
I’d carefully budget the funds over two years, allocating costs for travel, research, outreach, materials, and sustained development of new work.
I will also use the funding to deepen my understanding of domestic materials alongside their forms and functions. I will seek out these materials sustainably and ethically.
I hope to expand my philosophy surrounding materiality by enriching my craft with practice and development. I’d hope to buy books and journals to educate myself regarding this, and future opportunities.
This opportunity would be life-changing. It would allow me to root my practice in care, instinct, and honest research, through lived experience and through art. I want to create work that holds emotion without apology; that gives shape to what is often felt but rarely said.
Winning the Dover Prize would not only support my personal growth as an artist but also allow me to contribute meaningfully to Darlington’s creative landscape.
As someone who creates work rooted in lived experience, I aim to produce art that resonates with communities. Art that reflects shared emotions, hidden stories, and underrepresented voices.
Through my research into the domestic, womanhood, and neurodivergent perspectives, I want to open up conversations that feel relevant and needed.
I believe Darlington is full of untapped creative potential, and by engaging with the public through workshops, open studios, or collaborative projects, I can help foster a deeper connection between people and contemporary art.
My practice is shaped by intuition, empathy, and a desire to make art more inclusive and emotionally accessible. By working from within Darlington, I hope to show how the town can be a space where meaningful, experimental, and heartfelt work can thrive.
Winning this prize would signal that Darlington values voices like mine, and it would help raise the town’s profile as a place that supports emerging, diverse, and boundary-pushing artists, not just as a backdrop, but as a vital part of the artistic conversation.
My practice is rooted in emotional truth, intuition, and lived experience. As an autistic artist, I experience the world with a difference, visually, emotionally, and sensorially. Art is not just a way of expression; it is how I process, understand, and survive. My work often explores the domestic as a charged and complicated space; one that reflects gendered expectations, unspoken roles, and quiet rituals that shape identity over time. The domestic has traditionally been typecast as feminine: a site of nurture, repetition, and invisibility. I’m drawn to how these spaces hold gendered control and how the walls of a home can both protect and confine. My work seeks to surface the emotional and psychological weight embedded in domestic life, and to ask: what has been inherited, and what must be unravelled? Jungian theory, particularly the concept of the collective unconscious and archetypes, underpins much of this inquiry. I’m interested in how archetypes such as the Mother, the Caregiver, or the Shadow Self emerge and repeat across generations, especially in women’s lives. The domestic becomes a theatre where these inner roles are played out, often unconsciously. My work attempts to bring them to light, to hold them up to questioning, and to find tenderness within them. I research through instinct and conversation. I seek out stories from women, mothers, daughters, caretakers, survivors, and listen for what is said and unsaid.
I am also deeply inspired by the work of female and neurodivergent artists who have shaped practices from the margins, using art to navigate complexity and emotion. My process is slow, repetitive, and often meditative, echoing the rhythms of domestic labour. I manipulate materials with lost purpose; objects that have become useless, in hopes of regaining their consciousness. At its core, my practice is about reclaiming what has been hidden or dismissed and transforming it into something honest, poetic, and deeply human.
I hold a BA (Hons) in Art and Design, awarded through the University of Bolton and Greater Manchester in partnership with Bradford School of Art.
This course offered a multidisciplinary approach that encouraged both conceptual thinking and technical experimentation, allowing me to explore various mediums while developing a strong personal voice. Being based in Bradford also exposed me to a rich, diverse creative culture that continues to inform my interest in socially grounded, reflective art-making.
My academic background has shaped not just my skills, but the thoughtful, research-driven ethos of my practice.
I’ve been awarded funding by Bradford Art Centre, formerly known as Kala Sangam, supported by the National Lottery and Arts Council England, to create a new artwork as part of an initiative to support emerging artists. This was a £5,500 grant that will support a permanent exhibit.
I take part in community outreach, whether this be supporting local poets at the literature festival, or leading art workshops in painting and ceramics.
For the Bradford Arts Centre, I was commissioned to make a large installation piece. Alongside this, I co-created a series of works with the People Powered Press. These works were displayed at major Yorkshire heritage sites such as Salts Mill and Temple Newsam. The funding contributors to these projects were also the National Lottery and the Arts Council England.
My work has been bought by clients, but hasn’t been bought for a public collection.
My work has been displayed in exhibits such as:
South Square Gallery, Thornton
Dye House Gallery, Bradford x3
Trapezium Gallery, Bradford
Email: evee14wright@yahoo.com
Address: 12 St Barnabas road, Hightown, Liversedge, West Yorkshire, WF15 8BT, GB
Local Authority: Kirklees Council
