The Dover Prize bursary comes at a pivotal moment in my career, offering essential funding and opportunity to push my practice into ambitious, materially experimental, and conceptually rich territory. This award would provide the space to realise work that challenges me creatively and meaningfully engages contemporary audiences.
My research-based practice is rooted in place, community, and the often overlooked details of ‘work’. This opportunity would allow me to explore Darlington’s industrial past, present and social fabric, using its foundations in labour and manufacturing to examine how processes, materials, and histories shape identity and memory. I aim to build on existing methodologies to produce a forward-facing work with multiple avenues of departure.
I’m particularly interested in repurposing industrial materials and manufacturing processes, such as those from Darlington’s now-obsolete linen industry, as narrative tools. For example in my work Ideal Home, I developed a series of glass knives, combining technical experimentation with research-led storytelling to uncover domestic labour histories. Horizons, a performance, utilising 60 local women, reimagined the roles of local fishwives to explore female futures and historical labour, through embodied action.
The Dover Prize would provide an environment for experimentation, collaboration, and reflection, allowing me to challenge material conventions and investigate how place, performance, and object-making intersect in meaningful ways. In addition, the support and mentoring that the prize offers will be invaluable to my growth as an artist.
Year 1 (£1–4k): Research and Development
Funding would support travel to explore Darlington’s social and industrial geography, and the collection of oral, written, and archival material. I would identify new making opportunities and partnerships. Invest in skills development.
Year 2 (£4–10k): Production, Public Engagement and Legacy
Outcomes would include production of a public exhibition or performance in a non-traditional setting. A community event or artist talk to invite reflection and exchange. The work will be documented professionally and supported by commissioned critical writing. I also plan to produce legacy materials, such as a printed publication or archival element, to be housed in a public venue such as the local library.
I will raise the cultural profile of Darlington by producing an ambitious work of contemporary art that sees and responds to the people, sparking both local and national conversation. Positioning Darlington as a forward-thinking hub for artistic innovation.
Responsive to the town’s unique character, the work will activate an everyday public space, transforming it into a site of curiosity, reflection, and connection. This intervention will invite residents and visitors alike to experience Darlington in a new and unexpected way.
To ensure the project’s legacy, I will produce a heritage document that captures the work and embeds it within Darlington’s evolving cultural identity.
Drawing on my experience as curator at Middlesbrough Art Week, and my connections within the contemporary art sector, I will engage critics, institutions, and the press to generate wide-reaching attention. This sustained visibility will amplify the project and cement Darlington’s place on the cultural map.
I am a sculptor working with manufactured objects, as well as found materials. My practice explores themes of the quotidian within both industrial and domestic life, expressed through sculpture, installation, performance, and photography.
Research is central to the conception of my work. I often draw upon archival photographs, museum artefacts, manufacturing histories, and written texts to build reflective narratives of particular times, places, or communities. Through this process, I examine the interplay between material, labour, and memory.
My sculptures and installations frequently incorporate processes of making that involve piecework or repetitive action as a means to engage with ideas of labour. These gestures serve as metaphors for the invisible or undervalued work embedded in daily life.
In 2024, I presented two new bodies of work: ‘Ideal Home’ Above Ground, Middlesbrough and ‘Side to Middle and Inside Out Shuggie Bain’ at Cheesburn Sculpture Garden. Both works included the motif of knives to explore the fragility and complexity of domestic labour and home life, a theme that first emerged during a 2023 residency in Iceland while researching the lives of Herring Girls at the Herring Era Museum.
As part of this ongoing exploration, I collaborated with the team at Sunderland Glass to produce hand-crafted glass knives, an experimental process that deepened my engagement with materiality and making. This experience has encouraged me to seek further opportunities to work within manufacturing contexts.
New work being developed in the studio also includes working with heritage tapestry pieces. Silver wear and domestic kitchen pieces such as sinks.
Significant works include ‘Horizons’ a performance. Elements of which were included in ‘Sonya Boyce: In The Castle of my Skin’ MIMA 2022. ‘Horizons’ was highlighted in The National Gallery/The Met New York 2023 panel series.
The work was consequently shown at The Factory, Djupavik Iceland, 2024.
Recently shortlisted for :
The Art in Manufacturing Residency 2024.
Brickwork Museum Residency, Arts&Heritage 2023.
B.A.Honours Fine Art Newcastle University
I received a travel grant during my degree and a development grant from Northern Arts.
I am a member of Cullercoats Studio, a group of self sustained artists.
I have produced several self funded solo and group shows. e.g. Tanners Bank 2023.
Commissioned by MIMA to produce work for ‘Sonia Boyce: In The Castle of my Skin.’ 2021 The Banners consequently used in ‘Horizons’ performance were created and shown in context with the work of Boyce.
Lumiere Durham 2019 Brilliant commission. ‘Blue Skies’
My studio and practice can be found on Bloomberg Connects as part of Cullercoats Watch House.
Meet The Artist series for MIMA
My work is featured on Graeme Rigbys podcast, Herripedia, and his soon to be published book.
Resonance FM interviewed by Jude Montague for The News Agents
Horizons Performance was covered/reviewed by BBC Look North and The Journal.
Sculptural work included in ‘American Gothic’ by Aldobranti Fosco
2023 Herhusið residency Siglufjörður. A month long residency in the North of Iceland. Practice led research into the herring Girls of the town based around archives at The Herring Era Museum. Solo show presenting research and new works in progress.
Pieces developed on residency went onto inform works shown in 2024.
Email: pennypayne@hotmail.co.uk
Address: 22 Hawthorn Gardens, Whitley Bay, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, NE263PQ, GB
Local Authority: North Tyneside
