Introducing—Hayley White

Our first European Fine Art MA cohort will be graduating this summer, alongside a final exhibition of their work in July which will showcase the accumulation of their two year journey. In the run up to this exciting moment for us all, we will be introducing each of our graduating students, letting you in on their creative practice and the thoughts behind their work.

Introducing Hayley White

“Sometimes I feel lost in familiar surroundings. My mind knows logically where I am but without the body’s response and feeling - it’s experience, the narrative is incomplete. My work is about listening to the narrative of / within the body, a somatic response to medical anomalies, a built environment or nature. Turning inwards to the vulnerability and wisdom of the sensing body and understanding that through creativity.”

Hayley is a transdisciplinary artist working with drawing, photography, film, sculpture and sound in the extended field where these media intersect with and act as an extension of the body. Exploring the themes of human-object, human-self-woman and human-nature relationships and how these are understood via the body.

In 2020 Hayley established a new somatic creativity methodology, using bodily knowledge, meditation, intuition and imagination to understand the female body's lived experience through drawing, sculpture, film and photography. Somatic creativity is a process of making which works through the vulnerability of unknowing, to discovery and knowing, where the outcome and aesthetic of the works is largely an unconscious accident. The process brings the wisdom of the body to make discoveries and create new knowledge, which has connections with postfeminist theory. Ultimately for the artist, creativity allows self transformation and self awareness through discovering new knowledge, a practice of knowing based in-being ‘Onto-epistem-ology’ (Barad 2003).

The exhibited works in Thinging the thing (Inaugural MA group show July 2021 at The Margate School)are a culmination of two years of research and artistic development inspired by a medical condition (fibroids - abnormal growths in the womb) focusing on themes of; the female body, body materiality, fragmented internal body, body relational experiences (medical interventions and immersion in nature) and human connection with nature on a micro and macro level. Referencing postfeminist theory the artworks are a ‘creative return to the body, where art, the body, nature and the self are constantly evolving and transforming; in a cyclical, inter-relational and ongoing Becoming.’ (White 2021).

The final exhibition “Thinging the Thing” will take place between 2—25 July at The Margate School.

Applications are currently open for the next academic year, 2021-2023. Art, Society, Nature is the first of its kind in the UK, a new and unconventional fine art masters, aiming to provide an alternative approach to higher education in the UK. This course will encourage you to think about your practice outside of yourself, by exploring how your art can be used to benefit, protect and sustain the world around you.