Tag Archives: Creativity

South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

Christopher Henshilwood holds a 10 year South Africa National Research Foundation funded Research Chair and Professorship at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is also the Professor of African Prehistory in the Archaeology, History, Culture and Religion Institute at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Karen Loise van Niekerk is an archaeologist working on Middle Stone Age sites, specifically Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, in the southern Cape, South Africa.

Exploring interconnections of order and chaos

“I am an emerging artist living in Cambridgeshire. Due to circumstances involving one of my children and a traumatic brain injury, I began my current practice as a way to cope with the neurological rehabilitation that has consumed family life. This experience feeds heavily into my artistic process.”

Katherine Gravett has worked in collaboration with neuroscientists in Cambridge and her work has been exhibited in artistic, scientific and therapeutic settings.

Fragility and impermanence

“I am interested in fragility and capturing the essence of beauty in the inconsequential, the fragile, the imperfect. For me this encapsulates something very human; our vulnerabilities and unescapable impermanence.”

Sophie Erin Cooper creates work exploring the intricacies in the natural world and intangible human experiences; such as memories, thought patterns and the passing of time. Her piece ‘A Split Second of Humanity (Phase Two)’ was selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2018 and is currently being exhibited on a national UK tour.

Drawing, research and philosophy

Joe Graham is a Lecturer in Drawing at Falmouth School of Art, Falmouth University. He is an artist who writes about drawing and conducts research through drawing using various propositions drawn from phenomenology and ontology. His interests revolve around understanding how drawing operates as both a vehicle for expression and a mode of thought.

Drawing as a form of learning

“Drawing is a form of learning, by drawing something it changes how we look and how we relate to the thing we draw, it creates a deeper connection, an embodied experience beyond mere visual or cerebral knowledge. By giving form and a motor experience to it, the processes and functions of memory are altered. Drawing enables a different kind of knowing, anamnestic and forever stored as part of our DNA.”

Laura Hudson is a cross-media artist, writer and curator with a background in filmmaking and edible horticulture. In 2018 she was awarded the student prize at Trinity Buoy Wharf (formerly Jerwood) Drawing Prize, for her Nail House Drawings, and The Roger de Grey Drawing Prize.

Between the urban world and the wilderness

Juliette Losq is an artist known for photo-realistic pieces which seem like a portal to another world. Her oil paintings and drawings, which include the intricate and intimate as well as large-scale works and installations, incorporate imagery from a range of diverse interests, which she fuses with her own photographs taken during explorations of overgrown and forgotten places, The result are drawings, composed of fragments from all these realities, that transport the viewer to the border between the urban world and the wilderness.

Drawing Science

Bethann Garramon Merkle, MFA, is a multi-disciplinary science communicator and artist who specializes in sharing science through depictions of the natural world. In particular, her work explores the role stories play in shaping public perspectives of science and ecology topics. She is currently on staff with the Wyoming Migration Initiative, a research and outreach group within the Department of Zoology and Physiology, at the University of Wyoming. There, she directs the University of Wyoming Science Communication Initiative, conducts research on art-science integration and science communication, and helps researchers with outreach initiatives, offers trainings on sharing science, and creates images, text, social media content, and other outreach materials that convey research results.