HUMAN was an exhibition which I curated in Nottingham, UK. I brought together a group of 4 artists whose work I felt resonated with my own.

It started with the idea that I’d really like to exhibit with a sculptor or ceramicist - I love the combination of 2D and 3D in the same exhibition, especially if the work has a strong connection. I came across Sam Wellington in Whittle and Wolf, a craft/gift shop near Nottingham. I loved what she did and, as she was working in the shop at the time, I asked her there and then if she’d like to be in an exhibition. I thought that point I thought it’d just be the two of us, then Sam suggested Sara Hughes Parry might be a good fit too. I’d met Sara at the Nottingham Contemporary Craft Fair a couple of times and found her work really interesting. I was especially drawn to her more recent pieces like the one shown here and thought they resonated well with my own figures.

I’ve known Oliver Lovley for several years. I’ve always admired his paintings, and felt that his subtle palette would provide a nice balance to the intense colours of mine. Caroline Brown I’d met a couple of years previously when we exhibited in the same show at the Old Lock Up Gallery in Cromford, and I really loved the other-worldy quality of her paintings. Caroline is the only artist who doesn’t live in Nottingham and she’s kindly sending a small collection of her work down from North Yorkshire.

This exhibition brings together five artists whose practices are rooted in emotion, intuition, and the search for meaning through making. Each works from the inside out — shaping paintings, drawings, and sculptures that trace the contours of thought, feeling, and memory. Their processes are exploratory and instinctive, acts of discovery as much as creation, where uncertainty and imperfection become part of the language. They each find ways to externalise the interior, transforming private emotion into something shared and resonant. What unites them is a belief in the expressive power of art to connect, to comfort, and to reveal the fragile beauty of being human.