My recent work explores my father’s severe decline through dementia as well as my own mental health issues arising from coping with his deterioration. I would use the bursary as a two-part development opportunity. The first element will be an exploration of how personal trauma and mental illness shaped the radical prints of Edvard Munch. This research project will be at the Munch Museum in Oslo, studying his paintings, prints and extensive archive material, alongside expert guidance from the museum curators and director of learning.
The second element will be undertaking a series of printmaking courses to learn new skills to incorporate into my practice. Dementia sufferers benefit from routine and I want to highlight this by using the disciplined routine elements of the printmaking processes.
The funding will be used to create a series of prints which focus on the small but impactful things I’ve learnt about dementia that are not necessarily widely talked about. Ideally, I will commission a poet (also with experience of dementia) to respond to my images, collaborating on a publication exploring dementia to be distributed to UK-wide support groups to help others through raising awareness.
The research trip will allow me to engage directly with the extensive archive of Munch’s prints, letters and notes, which will move my work forward by adding rich depth to the way I approach making art with emotional heft, giving purpose and clarity.
Learning printmaking skills with experts in their field will move my whole practice forward by engendering a richer visual repertoire. Staggering the courses will provide much-needed time and space for experimentation and development. This will ensure professionalism in my printmaking, resulting in much-needed confidence to explore fresh paths for my artistic expression further afield.
I hope the bursary will help me achieve new artistic skills to widen the overall reach of my practice. And by collaborating with new creatives I hope to widen my artistic networks, which in turn will develop new exhibition opportunities. The poetry commission will give fresh insight into my work and give a richer experience to readers.
The Office for National Statistics states that dementia remained the UK’s biggest killer in 2023. Therefore, a project centred on dementia will ensure relevance to the widest possible audience in Darlington, as it affects the entire extended. Furthermore, producing and distributing a publication to local dementia groups, hospitals and surgeries will ensure a much wider audience reach than any exhibition could and, crucially, a significantly wider demographic.
Exhibiting the original prints would, however, give a focal point to the project – if a central venue could be secured – and in conjunction with the publication will ensure the profile of creative arts are widely raised in the area. I will invite local art groups and artist studios to attend poetry and live printmaking workshops during the exhibition’s run. My printmaking collaborator Adam Bridgland has successfully held live screen printing workshops with public drop-in at many public and private venues across the UK.
I would aim to have the exhibition covered by the Northern Echo and Nation Radio North East to gain maximum interest, and with my proven track record in gaining media attention for previous projects, I feel that if I received the bursary I could ensure a significant ROI.
In 2006 I applied for and received £10,000 Arts Council funding for a touring exhibition of my work in collaboration with artist Chris Aldgate. The proposal was for an evolving exhibition which was different at each venue, and included commissioning artists and writers to contribute video works, an exhibition text and lecture. The tour included a three-person exhibition at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art titled High Risk Painting, curated by Shezad Dawood. In 1999 I successfully applied for £5000 for a project for the ‘Year of the Artist’, ahead of the new millennium. The project was called Vend, where I commissioned 20 local artists in my studio building to make 20 small artist multiples to be sold through a vending machine in Leeds Corn Exchange. I secured the venue and hire of the vending machines through in-kind sponsorship. The two-week project was widely reported in the media, including newspaper articles in The Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Yorkshire Evening Post and Metro. I was interviewed by radio stations in UK, Germany and Canada. A short interview was broadcast on the local evening news. In 1997 and 1998 I received an Individual Artist Award from Yorkshire Arts.
I received an MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins School of Art & Design in London in 2001. My tutors and visiting lecturers included renowned artists (Peter Doig, Brad Lochore, Graham Gussin, Suzanne Treister, Shahin Afrassiabi) and London was alive with the YBA movement and many artist-led projects during this febrile time.
In 1997 I earned a BA (Hons) Graphic Arts & Design at university in Leeds, and then spent three years developing my work in my first studio full-time before applying for an MA, working in a cafe at weekends to support myself. I regularly traveled to London to see exhibitions, but utilised the cheap studio space in Leeds to focus on developing my work ahead of studying for an MA in London, where I knew I needed to be to further my practice. There was very little contemporary art in Leeds at that time, so I collaborated with theatre practitioners (including Unlimited Theatre) and writers instead, designing sets and posters, and putting on live events and performances in city’s burgeoning bar scene.
Before university I studied Foundation Art at Swindon College, earning a National Diploma, and at the end of year show I sold my first ever painting.
In 2006 I applied for and received £10,000 Arts Council funding for a touring exhibition of my work in collaboration with artist Chris Aldgate. The proposal was for an evolving exhibition which was different at each venue, and included commissioning artists and writers to contribute video works, an exhibition text and lecture. The tour included a three-person exhibition at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art titled High Risk Painting, curated by Shezad Dawood.
In 1999 I successfully applied for £5000 for a project for the ‘Year of the Artist’, ahead of the new millennium. The project was called Vend, where I commissioned 20 local artists in my studio building to make 20 small artist multiples to be sold through a vending machine in Leeds Corn Exchange. I secured the venue and hire of the vending machines through in-kind sponsorship. The two-week project was widely reported in the media, including newspaper articles in The Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Yorkshire Evening Post and Metro. I was interviewed by radio stations in UK, Germany and Canada. A short interview was broadcast on the local evening news.
In 1997 and 1998 I received an Individual Artist Award from Yorkshire Arts.
I have always been very pro-active in setting up artist-led exhibitions and events, In 2023 I set up a project space with another artist in my studio building in Stockwell called TWO-PLUS-TWO. The idea is to foster new connections between artists, where studio tenants are invited to submit proposals for exhibitions in the building’s foyer (approximately 7 x 5 metres, with high walls and track lighting). Our USP is that each artist has to invite another artist from outside the studio building to make a 2-person show, preferably an artist they like but have yet to meet. This creates a unique collaboration, and genuinely extends the network of each artist involved.
Our exhibitions regularly achieve high numbers of visitors, where curators, gallerists and critics are now regular attendees. We are now experimenting with group exhibitions by invited guest-curators, all with an emphasis on expanding the exhibiting artists’ professional networks by providing an intermediary safe space between the studio and a traditional gallery that specialises in creativity, collaboration and experimentation.
I have also curated group exhibitions with Hypha Studios, who work with developers to allow exhibitions in disused commercial buildings, which brings artists’ work to new audiences.
In 2016 I collaborated with printmaker Adam Bridgland for the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. We were commissioned by Guy Haywood, curator at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, to make a series of A0-sized fly-posted screen prints to cover the hoardings of the renowned museum and gallery during their extensive expansion and refurbishment.
The Festival of Ideas theme was Art / Language / Location, and our bespoke text-and-image posters covered 50m of public-facing hoardings on Northampton Street for three months. A signed series of the posters entered the Kettle’s Yard collection.
In 2006 I was painting in collaboration with Chris Aldgate, and we were invited to exhibit in a three-person exhibition titled High Risk Painting at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, curated by Shezad Dawood. The NGCA paid exhibitors fees, covered artwork transportation and insurance, as well as providing artists’ travel and overnight accommodation costs.
A signed series of posters made in collaboration with artist and printmaker Adam Bridgland made for the Cambridge Festival of Ideas entered the Kettle’s Yard collection in 2016.
Works are held in the collections of Central Saint Martin, Soho House and numerous private collections in the UK and overseas.
I have had works featured in numerous magazine, newspaper and online articles relating to exhibitions. One exhibition I curated called Vend (where small artist multiples were sold through a vending machine in Central Leeds) received widespread UK and international coverage, including newspaper articles in The Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Yorkshire Evening Post and Metro. A short interview was broadcast on the local evening news, and I was interviewed by radio stations in Germany USA and Canada.
My Painting Yoga Among the Houseplants featured in issue 12 of Art Maze Mag, and recent interior design projects featuring my work have appeared in Architectural Digest, Elle Decoration, House & Garden, Country Living, The Times Style Magazine and will soon appear in Vogue.
Catalogues include John Moores Painting Prize 2010, and Contemporary British Painting Prize 2023.
I am represented by MAH Gallery, London, since 2021, and Circle Contemporary Gallery, Cornwall, since 2023.
MAH Gallery are unique in that they span the fields of fine art, interior design and film. As well as holding traditional exhibitions by represented artists in their London spaces, MAH Gallery work with leading interior designers (Soho Home, Studio Ashby, Duelle Studio), where works by represented gallery artists are curated (and sold) into interior design projects, or hired out for photoshoots, marketing and advertising campaigns. Artworks are also hired out or sold for use in television and feature film sets.
My work has been exhibited at both Soho Home boutiques in London (King’s Road and Westbourne Grove), and at the exhibition launch of Soho Home Melrose Avenue boutique in Los Angeles in 2022. where all my works sold. Hire projects have included campaigns for Soho Home, M&S, Lick Paints, House of Hackney, as well as numerous television shows and feature films.
Circle Contemporary Gallery have exhibited and sold my works in three group exhibitions in their spacious two-floor gallery in Cornwall, and sold my work at the London Art Fair 2025. We are planning a solo exhibition in 2026.
In 2016 I successfully applied to the two-week Cill Rialaig Arts Centre residency in Ireland, where artists live in a pre-famine era buildings on the rugged west coast to focus on their work away from contemporary distractions or comforts (there is no electricity or wifi).
Later this summer I will be spending three days at Restaries in rural Suffolk by invitation of the owners, which will encompass drawing trees in the grounds of their 16th century farmhouse. Restaries is a wellbeing retreat, and my work there will focus on a continuation of my work drawing trees – symbolic of regrowth – near where my father lives in Suffolk as a cathartic way to cope with his severe decline through dementia.
In 2026 I am aiming to undertake a residency at Hogchester Arts, an immersive studio-based residency with other artists on the Dorset coast by previous invitation by artist and residency host Chantal Powell.
Email: leejohnsonstudio@gmail.com
Address: 61 Valley Road, London, SW16 2XL, GB
