Artists Make Space 2024-25

Richmond Arts Service support artists in developing their practice by providing free studio space across the borough.

Artists have been selected through an open call process and are now working in:

• Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham
• The Old Town Hall, Richmond
• OSO Arts Centre, Barnes

Find out more about the artists who are working on the programme.

Blue Fire Theatre Co - OSO Arts Centre

When: September and October 2024

Blue Fire Theatre Co is an independent theatre company. They concentrate on telling untold stories and making history relevant and relatable to today’s audience. Their work includes connecting with musicians using a cinematic approach to music.

The company was formed in 2018, and their initial project was an Edinburgh Festival Fringe production of Noel Coward’s Red Peppers. Since then, they have made collaborative creations where writers, directors, performers, musical directors and designers have all been involved from early stages.

Their previous theatre work includes the solo plays Kemp’s Jig, The Diary of a Nobody, Marie Lloyd Stole My Life, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Nightmare, Chopped Liver and Unions and Beemaster. Audio dramas include The Diary of a Nobody, Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday and Big Time, which they broadcast via our podcast, Famous People You’ve Never Heard Of. Their podcast is a series dedicated to honouring significant people of the past who are no longer remembered as they should be. 

Blue Fire Theatre Co firmly believe that education and entertainment need not be mutually exclusive and aim to make their shows as accessible as possible to everybody, introducing them to different cultures, time periods and people.  Their current project is a one woman show focussing on the question of identity and how our given name influences our life.

Find out more about Blue Fire Theatre Co:

• Blue Fire Theatre Co X
• Blue Fire Co Facebook
• Blue Fire Theatre Co Instagram
• Blue Fire Theatre Co TikTok

Dara and Bea - OSO Arts Centre

When: September and October 2024

Dara McLarnon is a BIFA nominated documentary film and audio maker. They have worked as an ethnographer, documentary director, editor and producer, and are a founding director of Postcode Films. They have a background in philosophy and a special interest in sound design, observational montage and audio storytelling. Their work brings the art of creatively crafted narrative to support authentic, first-person documentary storytelling.

Bea Brennan is a musician and producer of experimental electronic and electroacoustic music, with a background in Fine Art. She has performed solo at many notable venues in the UK including Glastonbury Festival; EartH; Corsica Studios; Iklectik; Jackson’s Lane. As well as her recorded releases, Bea has made music for film and is a member of Bleep43, a collective who put on immersive deep listening events in London. She also works part time as a specialist speech and language therapist in the area of adult neuro-rehab. Bea is particularly interested in human communication, cognition and the nature of perception.  

Dara and Bea are beginning the development of a collaborative audio feature, incorporating musical composition, field recordings, documentary interview, original foley, and archival sound. They are exploring improvisation and its effects from an artistic and psychosocial perspective and are interested in spontaneity, reaction and response. Spatialised sound design will invoke the experience of ‘feeling out’ where and how other people are in relation to themselves.

Find out more about Dara and Bea:

• Postcode Films
• Bleep43
• Jagged High Album
• Bea Brennan Instagram
• Postcode Films Instagram

Deniz Kurdak - Old Town Hall

When: June 2024 to April 2025

Deniz is a textile artist, who draws and paints with fabric and thread. She transcends traditional boundaries of craft by emphasising emotional repair and reconstruction. Each piece interweaves personal narratives. Her work reflects the themes of memory, identity, and belonging, inspired by objects from her past. Deniz uses storytelling to translate textual and conceptual ideas into visual, non-verbal forms. She rethinks the process of cutting, sewing, and weaving and introduces the idea of emotional healing, similar to how humans process their memories.

A key theme in Deniz’s work is her grandmother's chinoiserie-patterned pottery, which she says represents her journey ‘from the East to Europe.’ The pottery, intentionally broken and pieced back together, highlights the balance between fragmentation and wholeness. It explores the dualities of fragility and strength, belonging and separation, truth and illusion. Her use of soft, unbreakable materials like fabric and thread, symbolizing resilience and mending, creates a striking contrast with the delicate nature of porcelain.  In 2022, Deniz was recognised as a finalist for her textile art at the Women United Art Prize. This year, her works have been shown in the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition.

Before relocating to London in 2016, Deniz received a BFA degree in stage and costume design. She has worked as an academic staff member at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (Istanbul) and has conducted workshops across Switzerland, Turkey, and the US.

Her short stop-motion animation movies have been screened at multiple international film festivals. She was a finalist in the ‘Category of Disarmament’ at the 6th Festival for A Film For Peace in 2011. She was also awarded a grant by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Deniz has participated in many group exhibitions in Turkey, Beijing, and the UK.

Find out more about Deniz:

• Deniz Kurdak Instagram
• Deniz Kurdak website 

Donna Enticknap - Orleans House Gallery grounds

When: June to August 2024

Donna is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Twickenham. Her work is an exploration of our connections to place and time and how we collect and recall memories, woven through themes of mental health, nostalgia and personal identity. Donna works primarily with alternative photographic processes, as well as sound and moving image, using analogue and digital technology alongside each other to play with the idea of generation loss and the fallibility of human memory. 

Recently, Donna has been working in the woodlands at Orleans House Gallery. She has been using a pinhole camera to create a series of slow self-portraits that explore her relationship with time and the experience of being alone in nature. With pinhole photography, exposure times are much longer than a typical photograph – sometimes they can be up to an hour, depending on the available light. This creates a challenge for self-portraiture and having to remain as still as possible for all that time. Each photograph becomes almost a performance. Donna sets herself rules for this work – she can’t cheat to pass the time, so no listening to music or looking at her phone, she just has to be still and look at the trees and wait. Despite this stillness, the finished photo is often a blur. Sometimes the photo doesn’t work out at all, and she has to consider whether to do it all again. Alongside the photographs, she has also been recording moving image on film and video and has made field recordings to capture time from all angles.

Donna is touching on ideas of mindfulness and self-erasure, of being present in the moment and disappearing into it, and how connection to nature is the conduit for all of this.

Find out more about Donna:

• Donna Enticknap Website
• Donna Enticknap Instagram

Eden Igwe - Orleans House Gallery grounds

When: June 2024 to March 2025

Eden Igwe is a writer, filmmaker and artist based in Twickenham and born in Lagos, Nigeria. One of the many themes of Eden’s work is the confrontations between Blackness and suburbia, carefully mapping her own Black experience of Britain.  Last year she was the recipient of a commission from Warner Brothers Discovery to direct a short documentary 'Beats From Heaven' for the anthology series Black Britain Unspoken. The film was about gospel music featuring jazz artist Femi Koleoso of Ezra Collective.

During the residency, Eden has valued having a place to decompress and gather her thoughts while surrounded by nature and other contemporary art. Eden has had use of an inside space, but has enjoyed the frequent moments of walking through the grounds and reflecting on the many acts throughout time that has allowed her to be here in the present day. While identity and finding means to comprehend the past are major explorations, Eden is also fascinated by notions of contentment and belonging in space-time with regards to individuals, families, and communities.

Eden has developed texts including poetry, outlines for film works, and a piece of theatre, drafted under the title More Languages but currently titled The Moravian, about the literary figure Mary Prince. Eden is also developing an oral text about the history of the weekend, which she hopes to perform publicly and supplement with a film screening in the gallery.

Find out more about Eden:

• Eden Igwe Vimeo
• Eden Igwe Instagram
• Black Sound and Colour Instagram

Madiha Zaidi - Old Town Hall

When: June 2024 to April 2025

Madiha Zaidi, based in Richmond, is the founder of Invoke London, a brand celebrating the transformative power of colour. Madiha works with dichroic glass, which gives her creations an almost otherworldly quality due to its mesmerising colour-shifting properties. Utilised by NASA in advanced technologies, she describes this remarkable material as ‘out of this world’. Her artistic journey began at The Richmond Art School, where she mastered the delicate craft of glasswork.

Themes of healing and transformation are central to Madiha’s work. Her pieces have been exhibited at the Landmark Arts Centre, Richmond May Fair and Arts Richmond Open Studios. Her recent work, ‘Shattered Wholeness’, received significant attention, including from the Mayor of Richmond. Inspired by the butterfly - a universal symbol of hope and metamorphosis - this piece mirrors Madiha’s personal journey of overcoming adversity and embracing growth. She creates intricate Picasso-style compositions that symbolise rebirth and resilience.

Madiha’s use of vibrant colours is drawn from her cultural heritage. It not only reconnects her with her roots but also aligns with principles of colour therapy. This approach suggests that colours can influence emotional and physical well-being. It offers a healing experience that Madiha is passionate about sharing. Through her art, Madiha presents a unique blend of emotional depth and cultural significance.

Over the residency, Madiha is developing a series of fused glass works titled ‘Nature’s Reflections’. The series explores the symbolism and colours found in nature that inspire healing, growth, and transformation. Alongside these works, she will craft an accompanying fused glass jewellery line, offering wearable art.

Madiha will continue refining her signature Picasso-style compositions, layering complementary glass colours and textures. She will also experiment with iridised glass, introducing new textures and visual effects to enhance the depth and intricacy of her work. Madiha’s new works will be exhibited at several venues, including OSO Arts Centre and Landmark Arts Centre, amongst others.

The Richmond Business Hub has featured her journey and achievements as part of their local business success stories series. This residency marks an exciting chapter in Madiha’s artistic journey. She combines innovation with deep cultural and emotional connections to create pieces that resonate with both personal and universal themes.

Find out more about Madiha:

• Invoke London website
• Invoke London Instagram
• Invoke London Facebook
• Madiha Zaidi LinkedIn

Paloma Durante - Old Town Hall

When: June 2024 to April 2025

Paloma Durante was born in São Paulo, Brazil and holds a degree in Visual Arts and Art History. She works as artist, editor, educator, and performer.

As a visual artist, Paloma’s research is deeply connected to the concept of mediation as an artistic practice. She often challenges the boundaries between the roles of artist and art educator. Her experimental investigations encompass a range of subjects, including bodily explorations, writing, drift practices, the creation of devices that facilitate encounters, and the intricate relationship between word, image, and gesture.

With the experience of immigrating [from Brazil], many of her practices and understandings had to adapt. There was a constant confrontation with words, naming, references, and an entirely new curation of gestures brought about by this displacement. This has placed Paloma in a new state of attentiveness that has invited her to explore other, less prominent languages in her work. Paloma’s interest in drawing has emerged from this shift. She has begun to see the experience of the dot and the line as foundational elements of language, as a common ground that words cannot access.

During the residency period, Paloma has been exploring drawing through simple objects, such as eggshells and chairs, building with them a new possibility of syntax and text. The investigation of the gesture to grasp these objects, as well as the singularity of the lines produced during this process, are ways of thinking about narratives related to experience, displacement, failure, and integration.

Find out more about Paloma:

• Paloma Durante 

Paola Estrella - Coach House, Orleans House Gallery

When: June 2024 to January 2025

Paola Estrella is a multimedia artist born in Mexico City and currently based in London. Her work shifts across painting, video, installation, and performance. A core element of her practice is speculative fiction through which she conveys themes of intimacy, desire, and becoming. Paola’s work delves into the impact of new technologies on public and private spheres. She examines how imagination shapes social conventions, identity, and our perception of reality.  She explores the complex tensions in belief systems and worldviews, and how imagination and perception come together in spiritual or transcendent experiences.

Paola was selected for New Contemporaries 2022. She has performed at CCA Goldsmiths, South London Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others. She was commissioned by CW+ to exhibit in ‘Journeys: Healing Arts’ at Saatchi Gallery. She was shortlisted for the LUMEN Art Prize and exhibited at the Museum of Mexico City in 2021. She won the Travers Smith CSR Programme 2021. Her work was selected by White Cube Gallery for Tomorrow:London in 2020. She has a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in Contemporary Art and studied art direction and mixed media at Central Saint Martins.

This project addresses the complexities and tensions of worldviews by connecting the historical significance of the Cenote Ring in Yucatan Mexico, created by an asteroid impact, with contemporary societal issues such as consumerism, expansion, speed, and resource accumulation amid an ecological crisis. It strengthens connections between Mexico and the UK through cross-disciplinary collaboration. This residency is supporting Paola in completing the work and in delivering upcoming shows in the UK. She is using the space to plan, rehearse and film the performance.

Find out more about Paola:

• Paola Estrella website
• Paola Estrella Instagram

Robert Grieves - Orleans House Gallery grounds

When: September to December 2024

Robert Grieves is a wood sculptor, who celebrates the natural qualities of timber.  After a career in the digital arts, Robert established his sculpture practice in Australia. In 2024, he returned to Richmond, the area where he grew up, to continue his work that uses local materials. 

Robert is sculpting directly within the grounds of Orleans Gallery, rain or shine. He is embracing the challenge and limitations of working outside to experiment with new processes, swapping electric power tools for foot and hand powered equipment. He is learning centuries-old techniques used by woodland chairmakers, who worked around London. Robert has ambitions beyond traditional chairs, instead creating a fresh collection of contemporary art works from local timber.

Find out more about Robert:

• Robert Grieves website
• Robert Grieves Instagram

Shilpi Deb - Orleans House Gallery

When: September to October 2024 and February 2025

Shilpi Deb is a Kenyan-Indian artist who lives and works between Nairobi and London. She received a BFA from Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai, India.

Her work has been exhibited in Kenya at the National Museum, Circle Art Gallery, Gravit Art Gallery, Alliance Francaise de Nairobi, Kioko Art Gallery, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Talisman and in London, India and Japan, and was featured in The Kenya Art Diaries 2020. She is a multi-disciplinary artist and has worked in art direction for film, creating sets and props. Her works have also been central to community project campaigns in Kenya such as ‘Lesso Lessons’ that went on to win awards at the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity (Gold Lion) and D&AD (Yellow Pencil).

Shilpi’s work comes from a desire to untangle and make sense of things. She is fascinated by the ever-changing and delicate idea of the self. How is identity collected and accumulated? What is innate? What is consciously or unconsciously added by way of conditioning? And how does this affect our responses, understanding, contradictions and confusions?  Shilpi gradually makes parts of her work heavier or blurrier, allowing the background and figures to blend into each other. She adds and removes elements, using soft stippling and grids that seem to leak, so that each layer subtly changes the next.  The layers blend together so much that it’s hard to separate one from another, creating a soft, unified shape. Her pieces reflect the same process of gathering and layering that she goes through herself.

In the residency, Shilpi is focused on experimentation as she builds on recent shifts in her practice:

• Shifts in medium as she experiments with fabric hangings and miniature sculptures
• Shifts in concept owing to her recent resurgence of Hemiplegic migraines which have led her to explore:
  • Anger and intense mood destabilisations, a big part of the prodrome and postdrome phase
  • Colour as her migraine auras cause shifts in vision, which are scary but beautiful at the same time. Shilpi has largely focused on black and white for the past few years
  • Pain, mediation and habit – the stitched fabric hangings came out of this, sitting and working on one thing, slowly, painstakingly. The previous work/paintings are similar, layers and layers of light paint, continuous blurring. A way to calm the mind, a habit…

Shilpi’s main aim is to create ‘junk’! It is an attempt to take away the real-life pressures and weight that most artists’ everyday practices are usually riddled with. A kind of ‘Automatic Writing’ approach as she explores everything written above. She is putting off evaluation till after the residency period, when she will pick and choose works and directions that are worth pursuing (only if the junk allows of course). Shilpi is exploring if she can manage to put off the constant need to evaluate (which is something that has become so central to sustaining a creative practice) and just keep making, like a kid left with a treat of a bunch of materials, time and space.

Find out more about Shilpi:

• Shilpi Deb website
• Shilpi Deb Instagram

Teo Ormond-Skeaping - Orleans House Gallery

When: January and February 2025

Teo Ormond-Skeaping is an award-winning artist working with photography, documentary and narrative film, immersive technologies, and artist research on extensive interdisciplinary projects. His work explores the political ecology of the climate crisis, climate-induced migration, slow violence, climate-changed future scenarios, the governmentality of Loss and Damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the political and cultural critique of the Anthropocene, which he prefers to call the Capitalocene. 

Recent awards include: The Art & Citizenship Residency in collaboration with the United Nations Perception of Change Project, Embassy of Foreign Artists (2020), Coalition for Art and Sustainable Development on Disaster Displacement (2019) and the Culture and Climate Change: Future Scenarios Networked Residency (2016).  
Recent screenings and exhibitions include Fotodoks, Munich (2023), Futures/Melkweg Expo Amsterdam (2022), The Noorderlicht Festival of Photography (2019), Kunst Haus Wien: Museum Hundertwasser (2019), and Unseen, Amsterdam (2018).  

He also coordinates Ways of Repair: Loss and Damage, an artistic research residency that brings together artists and policymakers for a cross-disciplinary dialogue on the climate crisis and its impacts.

During his residency, Teo is developing an experimental moving image work that explores injustice at the heart of climate change negotiations. The installation and/or single channel piece will ask questions about climate change policymaking. It will explore the relationship between colonialism, extractivism, disaster-capitalism and the climate crisis.  

Find out more about Teo:

• Teo Ormond-Skeaping website
• Teo Ormond-Skeaping Instagram