ESTHER THORNILEY-WALKER
About
Artist Statement
My art conveys how nature, like the human experience, is a chaotic and complex interlocking tangle that when viewed from afar fits a pattern that simplifies and tames the individual strands. The disorienting movement and lack of defined borders goes against the sanitised stereotype of the wild, which is often condensed down to a utopian tranquil decorative backdrop for humankind. Within my art I conjure areas of interconnecting roots and searching plants, which are an expression of the mind – each gnarly branch a thread of imagination. With marks that overlap and merge, the physicality of paint echoes the feeling of intuitively following indiscernible trails, perceiving hidden patterns.
Within my art I explore the delicate balance between transience and permanence and the ever-changing cycles of growth and mortality and how we take for granted this cyclical process of decay and regrowth. I also tackle the sudden disruption prolonged cancer treatment brings when there is a disconnect from the rhythm of the landscape and separation from the changing seasons.
EDUCATION
2019 – 2020 History of Art Masters, University of York (Distinction)
2015 – 2018 Fine Art Painting (BA Hons), University of Brighton (First class)
2014 – 2015 Art Foundation, Northern School of Art/ CCAD (Distinction)
2010 – 2014 Northallerton College
ART AWARDS AND PRIZES
2026 Longlisted for Jackson Prize
2023 Recipient for Freelands Foundation Studio Fellowship, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen
2021 Semi-Finalist for RBA Rome Scholarship
2020 Shortlisted for stage 2 of John Moores Painting Prize
2018 Shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries
PUBLICATIONS
2026 Painted Conversations III, Gray’s School of Art lecturer research project, transcript.
2024 Naming the Thing, Freelands Studio Fellowship
2023 As they’ve grown, so I stand, exhibition catalogue
LECTURING + TALKS
2024 Artist Mentor, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, Cornwall. Supported by Freelands Foundation.
2023-2024 Grays School of Art, Aberdeen. Fellow in Fine Art Painting.
2023 Artist Talk: Manchester Met
2023 Artist Talk: Ulster University
2023 Artist Talk: Gray’s School of Art
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
25th – 27th May 2024, Beauty in Common Things, Art in the Shed, North Yorkshire.
18th April – 26th May 2024, Naming the Thing, Group Show, Freelands Foundation, Regent's Park Road, London.
16th – 22nd February 2024, Painted Conversations III, Collaborative show, Whitespace Gallery, Edinburgh.
14 – 17th December 2023, ‘As they’ve grown, so I stand’, Solo Show, Look Again Project Space Gallery, Aberdeen.
PAST NOTABLE SHOWS
2021 RBA Rising Stars, the Royal Over-Seas League, Mayfair, London.
2018 BFAP, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton.
2018 Reverie, University of Brighton, Edward Street, Brighton.
2017 Material Practices: Painting and Printmaking, Hove Museum & Art Gallery, Hove.
2016 In-between, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton.
COLLECTIONS
Waste Beyond, Waste Below in Crown Estate collection. Supported by Mall Galleries.
Private collections across the UK and Europe.
OTHER
2022 Summer Exhibition Fabricator for artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan.
2021 Felt Sculptural contribution to Lally MacBeth’s Tribute Shiela Legge performance, coinciding with Phantoms of Surrealism exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery.