MEET ARTISTS ANNA ILSLEY AND
LUCIANA ROSADO, WHO HAVE
BEEN WORKING IN COLLABORATION
WITH RESEARCHERS AT NEWNHAM,
VIA A SCHEME INITIATED AND SUPPORTED
BY PAINTER CLARA DRUMMOND (NC 1997)
Anna Ilsley arrived at Newnham in 2019 as the first artist to participate in the scheme. She has been working in creative collaboration with Dr Judy Quinn, College Lecturer and Director of Studies in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic. Throughout the project Anna has explored notions of the performative, nuances of identity and underexposed histories in a search for female ancestry, stimulated by research into medieval Scandinavian mythology. Earlier this summer, Anna exhibited her oil paintings and frescoes in the Old Labs, in her exhibition entitled VEFARAR : WEAVERS. In this film, Anna presents the exhibition and explains how the meeting of art and academia has evolved.
In 2020, Luciana Rosado became our second artist to join the scheme. She will discuss how notions of home, identity and belonging have informed her artistic practice in her collaboration with Margaret Anstee Centre researchers Dr Mezna Qato and Dr Georgia Cole. She will outline her interest in the condition of being transient: the notion of how we find or construct a sense of belonging in an unusual place. Luciana will also discuss how the Covid 19 pandemic shifted the direction of her collaboration, and how this reflected in her paintings, with their re-worked imagery and layers. The interview will conclude with the exciting plans for how these paintings will be shown at Newnham later in the year, and the interactive workshops and activities that Luciana plans for the wider College community as part of her display.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
LUCIANA ROSADO holds a Degree in Painting–Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon and participates regularly both in individual and group exhibitions, in the UK and in Portugal. In 2019, she exhibited at Kettle’s Yard Gallery as part of ‘The Cambridge Show’‘. In 2017, she represented Portugal in the touring European Biennale Jeune Création Européenne (Young Artist Biennale). Her first solo exhibition in the UK was ‘The Spare Room’ (2014) at Murray Edwards College. She previously undertook an artist-residency – in the AA2A Artist-in-Residence scheme – at Anglia Ruskin School of Art in 2011–12.
ANNA ILSLEY trained in Fine Art Painting at University of Brighton followed with Post Graduate studies at the Royal Drawing School. She held an IIFA teaching and artists residency in Modinigar, India, was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries and was awarded a funded residency at The British School at Athens. She has exhibited widely in London, New York and beyond. While at Newnham, Anna learnt Fresco, started a Sketchbook Club and drew during the weekly Pudding Seminars.