I would use this funding to dedicate my time and energy to developing and deepening my painting practise. This bursary would allow me space, materials and inspiration to consolidate and develop my practise. The limitations of motherhood and work responsibilities has restricted my practise in previous years. However with this bursary I would be able, at last, to fully energise and reinvigorate new threads and ideas that have recently developed in the studio. This bursary would allow me the space to consolidate that which has been developing over recent years and allow for a bold approach to creating a new body of work.
Over the past year I have made some major changes to my practise which has expanded the ambition of my work. When once my practise was limited to small scale works, I am now interested in working with more expansive surfaces and exploring a more encompassing painterly environment. This bursary would be a vital tool in allowing me to develop work at this scale, to explore and test ideas that I have been unable to. The bursary would enable me to pay for materials; such as larger canvas’ and paints to enable the creation of these paintings.
In particular I would also like to use this bursary undertake an important research trip. The writing of Natalia Ginsburg is becoming a major influence on my work as she explores the beauty to be found in daily life, the everyday and the overlooked city scape. I would use the bursary to undertake a research trip to Rome where she wrote and gained inspiration in order to explore what surrounded her, her grave and important landmarks associated with her writing. This type of personal pilgrimage would be so vital in moving my practise forward, helping to develop and deepen key themes of memorialisation and the memento within my paintings.
This bursary would result in delivering a new series of paintings that will embody and consolidate these ideas embedded within my practise. It would enable me to realise paintings that are at present limited to plans, sketches and preparatory work.
I believe by creating this new body of paintings I would be able to draw attention to the overlooked spaces and beauty to be found within the everyday life of Darlington. In particular I would love to focus on the history of Darlington as an important market town. My paintings explore everyday motifs, from food to floral arrangements and I would aim to use the site of the indoor market in Darlington as starting point for a new body of paintings. I would love to explore the traditional facades and surfaces within these types of markets and bring attention to the nature of community that is embodied within these spaces. From exploring modes of display, leftovers and fragments I would like to explore how the traces of this community can be visually explored and memorialised within painting.
My practise uses painting to explore themes of memorialisation, the everyday and the fragment. Taking objects and surfaces from everyday archeologies the work plays with placement, arrangement and order to create a painterly space which is intimate and mediative.The paintings are immersed in the role of touch, with an emphasis on what is hand made, hand tied and self constructed. Littered with mementos and personal fragments, that which is slight and sentimental is able to hold centre stage. There is an exploration of the stillness within shallow spaces, revealing the expanses and journeys that can arise within these restricted painterly worlds I recently took part in a group show, ‘Ordinary Things’ at Workplace, London which focused on painters who explore the overlooked, the ordinary and the everyday. I am also included in the upcoming painting survey, ‘Flat Volume’ at APT Gallery, curated by Sarah Longworth West in association with Norwich University and The Haarlem Open in Wirksworth. Last year I worked with curator Kristian Day to produce my first solo show in Nottingham where I currently work and live. ’Placeholder,’ presented a new body of work within the no-longer-occupied spaces around my studio in the city’s Lace Market. Within this context familiar painterly motifs such as drapery and candles appeared both as cut outs and ‘stand ins’—as fragments arranged over surfaces, allowing connections to be drawn between paintings and across rooms. A selection of previous group exhibitions includes: Pourquoi London, 2024, Spitalfields; To Feel All Your Warmth, Warbling Collective, London 2022; Gertrude Presents’, Truman Brewery, London 2022; Fully Awake, Holden Gallery, Manchester 2021; Contemporary British Painting Prize, 2021; The Toast, curated by Robin Footitt, New Arts Projects, London 2018; Marching through the fields, Warbling Collective, London 2018; You can’t blame gravity for falling in love, curated by Eliza Bonham Carter, Lychee One, London 2016. Previous solo shows include: One Unit And The Next, 2015, Andor Gallery, London and Can Be Used Over And Over, Centre for Contemporary Art, Londonderry in 2014.
graduated from Glasgow School of Art with a 1st Class Honours degree in painting in 2005. I have also completed a post graduate diploma of fine art at The Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 2010. I have also taken part in an exchange program and studied at the HGB Academy in Leipzig for 4 months in 2008.
I received the Chadwell Studio Award, London in 2011 which provided me with a free studio for a year at Acme Studios Childers Street, as well as funding to produce new work and a final exhibition. This was a vitally important award for me at the time. As a recent graduate it enabled me to grow my practise in the real world and to build a supportive community.
I was also awarded The CCA Derry, Production Award in 2014, were I was given a solo exhibition at the gallery with the responsibility of managing a budget and the production of new body of paintings.
Recently I have been interviewed by Gertrude, the online platform as a part of my collaboration with them in 2023/24 and also NONOtes contemporary art platform.
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Although I am currently talking with a gallery about this possibility.
Back in 2010 I was awarded the Summer Rome Prize by The Royal Academy and spent a month at The British School at Rome, long before I discovered Natalia Ginsburg. I used this time to research Roman painting and develop new ideas for my practise. I was able to visiting the wall paintings at Pompeii and the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.
Email: sarahkatharinepoots@gmail.com
Address: 79 Sherwood Vale, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG5 4EB, GB
Local Authority: Nottingham City
