If awarded the £10,000 bursary, I would use the funds to develop a community-centred project exploring the local ecological and industrial heritage of Darlington. I aim to create a project that supports local artists, inspires creative connectivity with the community, and recognises the incredible heritage of Darlington. The funds would facilitate my engagement with local people, artists, and specialised practitioners. I would use a portion for an enhanced DBS check, to facilitate engagement with local schools for my project, as well as for travel within the area and materials essential to the project’s development and final presentation. Additionally, I intend to engage and fairly compensate local artists and craftspeople, fostering collaboration and supporting the local creative economy. My vision for the project is to explore Darlington’s unique ecology — focussing on wildlife habitats, nature reserves and protected species — while juxtaposing these with the area’s rich industrial legacy. The final presentation would integrate elements of my painting practice with Darlington’s heritage industries, such as ironmongery and textiles, creating a multidisciplinary reflection of the area’s identity.
While my practice is rooted in painting, this opportunity would allow me to broaden my artistic approach, providing opportunity to collaborate with local creatives to experiment with new forms and mediums. Being originally from Redcar, I have a deep personal connection to the area. Therefore, this project would not only enhance my practice through interdisciplinary exploration but also strengthen my connection with my native creative community.
This bursary would be transformative, enabling me to acquire new skills, expand my practice, and build meaningful connections between art and community in a place close to my heart.
I am passionate about making art accessible and deeply believe that feelings of accessibility — or inaccessibility — start at a young age. My own artistic journey was shaped by amazing experiences with visiting artists during school, where my love of art was fostered through being able to see myself realised within artistic projects. Therefore, I intend to create similar opportunities for children and young people in Darlington as a core element of this project. I would engage local schools in research projects focussed on local ecology, involving students in collaborative activities that nurtures their creativity, values their input, and inspires a lasting connection to the arts.
Collaborating with local artists and practitioners would be another core aspect of the project, focussing on ironmongers and textile artists to reflect upon the industrial creative heritage of Darlington. By partnering with local practitioners, I aim to enhance the creative quality of the project, allowing for unique presentations beyond painting, and building stronger ties between the artists and the community.
The project would culminate in a final presentation that unites the contributions of local students, artists, and my own practice, in a body of work that genuinely represents the artistic diversity and promising creative future of Darlington. By fostering youth connections and highlighting local talent, I believe this project would raise the profile of the arts in the area, inspiring broader engagement and pride in Darlington’s cultural heritage.
I am London-based artist specialising in painting. I am currently working towards a solo exhibition with Hanway Collective, a small pop up gallery in Tottenham Court Road which champions emerging artists and breaks down the barriers of institutional expectations for artistic presentations. In 2024, I was shortlisted for both the Morrison Foerster Art Prize and the Hari Art Prize. I believe painting is coloured by the metaphysical frameworks of emotion and information that affect the painter at work, rendering each piece a snapshot of my inner world in the moment of creation. I draw titles from idiosyncratic snippets of news media, a ritual that saturates the paint with the maelstrom of media narratives. My paintings are not just pure creations; thy are reactions — responses both to the physicality of the material and to intuitive interactions with the world. The gestures I make become carriers of emotional resonances, providing a pathway into a referential space where the viewer can join me in exploring the peculiarities of the contemporary human experience.
Driven by recurrent frustrations of the creative process, whether stemming from external expectations of coherence or introspective interrogation of my own anxieties, my process combines conceptual and practical gestures of erasure and resurfacing. This method helps me to combat moments of hesitation or conflict, enabling me to transform these incidents into catalysts for action. I banish the expectation of conformity, offering a glimpse into an alternate reality where play and spontaneity are nourishing and valued as opposed to raw, quantitative production that is often implicitly demanded by the market.
I am building an expansive body of work that unfurls through a complex web of relational links, while simultaneously allowing opportunities for unique individual presentations. Through a sustained exploration of the materiality of paint; its applications, limitations, and inherent reactive potential, every painting embraces the possibility of something happening.
I believe the best painting is always peculiar and unknowable.
I have obtained a Postgraduate degree from the Royal College of Art in MA Painting in 2023, and an Undergraduate degree from UAL Wimbledon College of Arts BA Painting in 2016.
I have collaborated with community arts projects in London, such as Community Network, and collaborated in co-curating exhibitions across London since 2018. I enjoy getting art into unique spaces and have produced shows in social enterprise businesses like the Brixton Pound Cafe, and artist-led spaces such as the Function Suite. My most recent project was in 2024, where I curated an exhibition at the Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London, which championed 5 emerging female abstract painters as they graduated from the Royal College. I also provide visiting artist talks, workshops and student one-to-ones, having most recently spoken at alternative arts program Turps Banana and hosted a painting workshop at Imperial College London.
In 2017, my work was chosen from the CCW collection at UAL by the Royal Marsden Arts forum Charity to host a solo presentation of work across the Sutton and Chelsea hospital sites. I was commissioned to produce a 12 part series of works to open the project space at the Sutton site.
Following the success of my solo presentation at the Royal Marsden Hospitals, the forum charity selected 9 works for their public hospital collection. The work still hangs in patient areas across both the Sutton and Chelsea sites.
Alongside being shortlisted for the Hari art prize, I was interviewed by A Space for Art and an emerging art critic about my work in the show and my practice.
A Space for art – https://www.aspaceforart.com/artists/377-heather-green/biography/
Asiimov Baker – https://www.asiimovbaker.com/post/the-kids-are-alright-an-incomplete-portrait-of-a-small-sliver-of-the-current-artistic-generation
Email: info@heathergreen.co.uk
Address: Studio 222, Unit 7, Thames-Side Studios, Harrington Way, Woolwich, London, SE18 5NR, GB
