Ruth Claxton lives and works in Birmingham. Claxton has shown widely in the UK and internationally including solo shows at Site Santa FE (USA), Spike Island (Bristol, UK) and Ikon Gallery (UK).  Other shows and projects include The Unseen, Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Contemporary Art (China), Synthetic Worlds (Two Women) a permanent commission for the Grundy Gallery, Blackpool supported by the Contemporary Art Society, Postcards Nottingham Contemporary (UK), House of Beasts, Attingham Park (UK), Undone Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, UK), Remake, Remodel (National Glass Centre, Sunderland UK), Wonders of Weston, Weston Supermare commissioned by Situations and Field Art Projects, The Figurine Dialogue, Crystal Palace, (Stockholm, Sweden) and Known Unknowns, Gallery Loop (Seoul, Korea). She is Associate director of Eastside Projects, a public gallery in Birmingham which is being imagined and organised by artists. Her work is in various public and private collections including the Arts Council Collection.

Rachel Goodyear (b. 1978, Lancashire, UK) lives and works in Manchester. She studied at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her intricate and unsettling drawings represent interior conditions – psychological or emotional states – through ambiguous narratives. Protagonists, often female figures, in self-abusive situations, or captive in moments of physical entrapment, enclosure or flight, incorporating symbolic, sometimes ritualised relationships with animals like deer, wolves and octopuses make up her extraordinary fantastical world. Selected solo exhibitons include: Muzzles and Murmurs, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2014); Artificial Night, International Three, Manchester, (2013); A Tethered Swarm, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2012); Modifications of the Host, in The Bothy Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2011); The converging ends were misaligned, Pippy  Houldsworth, London (2009); and They only run, never call, The International Three, Manchester (2009). Selected group exhibitons include: Access all Areas, Manchester Metropolitan University (2012); Drawing Stories: Narration in Contemporary Graphic Art, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (2012); New to the Collection, Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster, UK (2011); Artist Profile Display, Manchester Art Gallery, UK (2011); House of Beasts, Meadow Arts, Attingham Park, Shropshire, UK (2011); and Personal Tempest, Neue Galerie für Moderne Kunst, Innsbruck, AT (2011).
 

Ilana Halperin (b. 1973, New York) lives and works in Glasgow. She received her MFA from Glasgow School of Art; Glasgow, Scotland in 2000 and her BA from Brown University; Providence, RI in 1995. Her work has featured in solo exhibitions worldwide including National Museum of Scotland, Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité and Artists Space in New York. Halperin’s creative output focuses upon geological activity and phenomena in an engagement with our understanding of time. The artist’s oeuvre combines geology and fieldwork in diverse locations: Hawaii, Iceland, France, Japan and in museums, archives and laboratories with an active studio-based practice. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Estratos curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, PAC Murcia, Spain; Volcano at Compton Verney; Polar Dispatches at the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; the Sharjah Biennial 8 and Experimental Geography, ICI, curated by Nato Thompson. Halperin is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Inaugural Artist Fellowship at National Museums Scotland, a British Council Darwin Now Award and an Alchemy Fellowship at the Manchester Museum. She has undertaken artist residencies at the Camden Arts Centre, Cove Park and aboard the Professor Molchanov, an ecotourism vessel that travels into the far North. Halperin is the Artist-Curator of the geology collection for the new Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, in the birthplace of Charles Darwin.  

Alex Pearl (b. 1968, Manchester, UK) lives and works in Ipswich. He earned a BA Hons, Fine Art, Birmingham Polytechnic (First) and an MA History of Art & Design UCE Birmingham, (distinction). A true renaissance man, Alex Pearl makes: mini epic films, video installations, games, photographs, sculpture, blogs and books. Throughout his practice there is a sense of an acceptance of failure and disappointment as important parts of the human condition. His recent commission for the Whitstable Biennale was based on a mistake and, lately, he has been unsuccessful in his Arts Council funding application to slaughter a large number of rival artists. Selected residencies include: Art as a Full Time Hobby, Aid & Abet, Cambridge (2011); Pearlville, Production Residency for, Unspooling – artists and cinema, Cornerhouse, Manchester (curated by Andrew Bracey & Dave Griffiths) (2010); and Production residency BCA gallery, Bedford (2009). Selected solo exhibitions include: Mothra vs Godzilla, Canal Project Space, London (2014); Let’s Go!, Fishmarket Gallery, Northampton (2012); The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tap Gallery Southend (2010); Goodbye to most of the Daydreams, BCA Gallery, Bedford & ICIA, University of Bath (2009). Selected groups shows include: S1 Salon, S1 Artspace, Sheffield (2012); Beyond Belonging, 12th GOEAST – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden, Germany (2012); commision for the Whitstable Biennale, Whitstable (2010); Unspooling – artists and cinema, Cornerhouse, Manchester (curated by Andrew Bracey & Dave Griffiths, (2010); Trying to cope with things that aren’t human, DCP, San Francisco, Airspace, Stoke on Trent, & Cell project space, London. curated by Ian Brown, (2009); and Drawing Links, The Drawing Room, London & Outpost, Norwich. www.alexpearl.co.uk