These artists utilise the immediacy and directness of the drawn line to document experience, lived or imagined, giving form to memories and private thoughts. Taking inspiration from literature, popular culture and folklore, the artists use drawing to tell stories about age, sexuality, gender and politics. The works incorporate assemblage and collage, testing the boundaries of drawing as it moves into three dimensions. Traditional craft techniques, such as embroidery and quilting, are employed as a conceptual strategy with which to explore the construction of female identity. Exploring states of being, both interior and exterior, the artists tell stories that are as personal as they are universal.
Emma Talbot (b. 1969, Worcestershire) lives and works in London. Studied at Birmingham Institute of Art & Design; and the Royal College of Art. She is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal College of Art and winner of the 8th Max Mara Art Prize for Women, in association with Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti. Select solo exhibitions include Sounders of the Depths, GEM Kunstmuseum, The Hague (2019-20); 21st Century Sleepwalk, Caustic Coastal, Salford (2018); Woman-Snake-Bird, Galerie Onrust, Amsterdam (2018); Emma Talbot, Nicolas Krupp Galerie, Basel (2018); Open Thoughts, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen (2018); Stained With Marks of Love, Arcadia Missa, New York (2017); CONDO, Arcadia Missa, London (2017); Time After Time, Petra Rinck Galerie, Dusseldorf (2016); and Unravel These Knots, The Freud Museum, London (2016). Select group exhibitions include Do You Keep Thinking There Must Be Another Way?, Mimosa House, London (2019); From The Inside Out, Drawing Room, London (2018); Virginia Woolf, Tate St Ives, St Ives and touring (2018); and Journeys With The Waste Land, Turner Contemporary, Margate (2018). Her work is held in public and private collections including Arts Council Collection; The British Council Collection; The David Roberts Collection, London; Permanent Collection AGWA Perth, Perth; and Daniel and Florence Guerlain Collection, Paris.
Athena Papadopoulos (b. 1988, Toronto) lives and works in Hull. Studied BFA Contemporary Art Theory and Visual Art at University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2006-2011) and MFA, Fine Art Practice at Goldsmiths, University of London (2011-2013). Select solo exhibitions include Cain and Abel Can’t and Able, MOSTYN Museum, Llandudno, Wales (2020); Athena Papadopoulos, Emalin, London (2020); The Apple Nun, Liebaert Projects, Kortrijk, BE (2019); Holy Toledo, Takotsubo!, curated by CURA, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2019); A Tittle-Tattle-Tell-A-Tale Heart, Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2019); The Smurfette, Emalin (London, UK, (2017); Belladonna‘s Muse, curated by Samuel Leuenberger, CURA Basement Roma, Rome (2017) Wolf Whistles, Shoot the Lobster, New York (2016); Zabludowicz Invites: Athena Papadopoulos, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2015); Honeymoon in Pickle Paradise, The Landmark Hotel, London (2014); and OUT COLD, OTHER Projects, Berlin (2014). Select group exhibitions include The Condition of Being Addressable, ICA, Los Angeles (2021);Future City Shining the Eternal Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020); World Receivers, curated by Tiffany Zabludowicz, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2019); The Marvellous Cacophony, curated by Gunnar B. and Danielle Kvaran, 57th October Salon, Belgrade (2018); Streams of Warm Impermanence, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2016); Wild Style, Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany (2016); Bloody Life, Herald St., London (2016); From Transhuman to South Perspectives, ROWING, London (2016); Dear Luxembourg, Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg (2015); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London (2014-2015); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, World Museum, Liverpool (2014); AWAY, Sunset Terrace, Vancouver (2014); Push and Paint, Touch and Display, Vitrine Gallery, London (2013-2014); Goldsmiths MFA Graduation Exhibition, The Pool, London (2013); LumpSum, in collaboration with Derrick Jefferies, the invisible line, London (2012); and HEADING, in collaboration with Justin Worhaug Frederick, L/D's Project Space, Vancouver (2011).
Marie Jacotey (born 1988, Paris) lives and works in London. Graduated with an MA Printmaking from the Royal College of Art, London (2013). Select solo exhibitions include Goodbye Darkness, Ballon Rouge, Paris (2018); and Morning Defeats, Hannah Barry Gallery, London (2017). Select group exhibitions include Architectural Ethnography, Japan Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2018); Watery, fluid, Cloud cuckoo land, London (2018); You see me like a UFO, Marcelle Joseph Project, Ascot (2017); and Assemble: How We Build, Architekturzentrum Wien, Vienna (2017).
Nilbar Güreş (born 1977, Istanbul) lives and works in Istanbul and Vienna. Studied Fine Art at Marmara University, Istanbul (2000) and Fine Art at Malerei und Grafik, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna (2002). Select solo exhibitions include OVERHEAD, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (2018); Jumping Bed and Female Lovers, Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin (2018); Heartache of a Stone, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2017); and Open Phone Booth, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel (2016). Select group exhibitions include From the Inside Out, Drawing Room, London (2018).