AA2A Artist

Mollie Balshaw

Year:
2023-24
Project summary:

I’m a nonbinary/queer visual artist and producer based in Manchester. I create paintings in the expanded field, which is a fancy way of saying I make work using non-traditional materials and methods; like chucking a disco ball in a bucket of emulsion or making a portrait with a plastic garden chair. The throughline of all my work is an interest in materiality, abstraction, the performative qualities of painting and representations of queerness.

For AA2A I am interested in exploring painting as an interactive experience. I see potential in the private performativity of painting, particularly from a queer lens. Painting is often solitary and confined, based on principles of isolation for the artist to ‘concentrate’. My painting practice is more interested in invitations to play, the movements that painting create and the possibilities I see in a practice that embraces this. I’m keen to be in a busy educational environment that allows me to build on the energy of students, whose ideas aren’t restricted by the limitations of the art world outside of their institution. I find students really inspiring and I think working with them can help to unlock new directions in my practice, and the resources of the university can help to ground this.

I’m a nonbinary/queer visual artist and producer based in Manchester. I create paintings in the expanded field, which is a fancy way of saying I make work using non-traditional materials and methods; like chucking a disco ball in a bucket of emulsion or making a portrait with a plastic garden chair. The throughline of all my work is an interest in materiality, abstraction, the performative qualities of painting and representations of queerness.

For AA2A I am interested in exploring painting as an interactive experience. I see potential in the private performativity of painting, particularly from a queer lens. Painting is often solitary and confined, based on principles of isolation for the artist to ‘concentrate’. My painting practice is more interested in invitations to play, the movements that painting create and the possibilities I see in a practice that embraces this. I’m keen to be in a busy educational environment that allows me to build on the energy of students, whose ideas aren’t restricted by the limitations of the art world outside of their institution. I find students really inspiring and I think working with them can help to unlock new directions in my practice, and the resources of the university can help to ground this.

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