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Artist Bio

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Esther Thorniley-Walker originates from the North York Moors. She graduated from University of Brighton in 2018 with a Fine Art Painting degree and from University of York with a History of Art MA in 2020. Her art follows elusive thoughts and instinctive marks like a hardly discernible track that weaves and twists through deep forests and high waves of heather. This fusion of natural imagery with imagination and symbolism, explores the concept of wilderness and human relationship with the environment. She was the recipient of the 2023 Freelands Foundation Studio Fellowship at Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University Aberdeen and subsequently had a solo show ‘As they’ve grown, so I stand’ at Look Again Project Space, Aberdeen. Followed by ‘Painted Conversation III’ collaborative exhibition at Whitespace, Edinburgh and the group show ‘Naming the thing’ at Freelands Foundation, London. ​

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Artist Statement

 

My art manifests the sensation of being swept up into the chaotic, disorientating, movement of nature. With instinctive marks that overlap and merge, the physicality of paint echoes the feeling of intuitively following faint trails through high heather and dense forest. In my mind, my marks are conjuring areas of interconnecting roots and searching tangled branches wrestling for light and survival, which must be woven through. This wild space is an expression of the mind – each gnarly branch a thread of thought, showing how you can get lost in imagination and mystery both physically and metaphorically when you step off the path.

 

In my art I also portray the unforgiving beauty of nature’s ever-changing cycles of growth and mortality and how we take for granted this cyclical process of decay and regrowth. I am increasingly preoccupied with nature’s disrupted delicate balance between transience and permanence. Nature should never be condensed into a mere tranquil decorative backdrop for humans. It should be seen as a living complexity that is harsh, ferocious and malevolent to those that underestimate it.

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EDUCATION

2019 –  20 History of Art Masters, University of York

2015 – 18 Fine Art Painting (BA Hons), University of Brighton 

2014 – 15 Art and Design Foundation, Northern School of Art / CCAD

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AWARDS

2023  Freelands Studio Fellowship recipient 

2021  Semi-Finalist for RBA Rome Scholarship

2020, Longlisted for John Moore Painting Prize 

2018, Longlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries

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CATALOGUES

2024 Naming the Thing

2023 As they've grown, so I stand 

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LECTURES

2023 Gray's School of Art

2023 Manchester School of Art 

2023 Ulster University

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RECENT EXHIBITIONS

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25th-27th May 2024, 'Beauty in Common Things, Collaborative show, Art in the Shed open studio, 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, Collaborative show, Whitespace, Edinburgh.  

14th-17th December 2023, ‘As they’ve grown, so I stand’, Solo Show, Look Again Project Space, Aberdeen

 

PAST EXHIBITIONS

 

2021 Waste Beyond, Waste Below, Pall Mall, London.

2021 RBA Rising Stars, Group Show, the Royal Over-Seas League, Mayfair, London.

2018 BFAP, University of Brighton, Brighton.

2018 Reverie, Edward Street, Brighton.

2017 Material Practices: Painting and Printmaking, Hove Museum & Art Gallery, Hove.

2016 In-between, University of Brighton, Brighton.

 

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