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EXPERIMENTAL SPACE COLLECTIVE
MEET THE ARTISTS
AYA HASTWELL
Aya Hastwell is a Watford-based artist originally from Kazakhstan. Aya's paintings reflect travel, nature, and people. She works in various materials and genres.
Currently, Aya divides her time between the UK and Kazakhstan. Her nomadic lifestyle leads to a rethinking of family ties, what constitutes home, and how to get used to being mobile as an artist. Aya presents her feelings about it in various art projects: “One image a day”, “Nomadic life of a static object”, Portal Walks. The latest project "Between Two Doors" reflects her state of suspension and displacement from a stable life.
Also, in recent years, Aya has been focusing on paintings with children. Children perceive the world differently. Their sincerity and curiosity about the world around them help Aya to look for a reflection of childish spontaneity in her paintings. Aya studied at City Lit and the Art Academy in London. She exhibited in London and Hertfordshire. Aya’s paintings are in private collections in several countries. Instagram // Facebook
EAN KONOPNICKI
Ean Konopnicki is based in Flint, Michigan in the USA. Her work involves unearthing
the hidden self. With a deep understanding of trauma, healing, disability,
neurodiversity, and women’s health issues. She incorporates a wide range of media
including but not limited to, drawing, painting, mixed media, experimental methods,
and tools.
JUDY NAKAZATO
Judy Nakazato’s long held ambition to go to art school finally came about, when as a mature student she graduated with a degree in fine art from Cambridge School of Art in 2014. During that time her practice focused on works with thread, paper and fabric, making subtle interventions in site specific installations. More personal works on memory and loss were informed by her experience of caring for her mother who had dementia.
Judy’s work is deeply influenced by time spent in Japan with her bicultural family. The study of the traditional arts of calligraphy, and ikebana and more recently wood block printing and ink painting bring a zen aesthetic to her practice. She enjoys the discipline of these traditions in parallel with what they can bring to a more experimental way of working.
PRAGYA BHARGAVA
Pragya Bhargava is a visual artist, researcher and educator based in India. Her work explores the convergence of time and distance in earthly and cosmic landscapes. She is curious about unknown and unexplored phenomena within these landscapes and their relationship with the beings they influence. She focuses on how change occurs in them and how it can be influenced. Her methodology is based on finding meaningful materials translations and methods for her research concerns using drawing, painting, photography and social practice.
Pragya completed her MRes from Royal College of Art in 2020. She has exhibited her work internationally in Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, India, UK, Turkey and Kazakhstan. She was awarded the Lasalle Merit Scholarship for 2012-13 and for 2013-14, Winston Oh Travel Practice Award 2013 and Artreach-Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Teaching Fellowship 2020-2021.
SALLY STENTON
Sally Stenton is based in a rural location near Cambridge in the UK. She creates work that connects with the senses, bringing the body into conversation with the earth, exploring traces through time, often catching people unawares. She facilitates walks that shift ways of interacting with familiar places, re-framing everyday encounters.
She is exploring collective practices and collaborates with beings, materials and machines that bring other perspectives. Her practice is international, connecting in profound ways across countries without the travel of her body. She completed her Masters at the Royal Collage of Art in 2020 and during that time learnt to adopt a sceptical, measured approach to the use of digital communications, embracing the possibilities and limitations with the hope of carving out ways of dancing lightly with technology.
SANDY LAYTON
Before becoming an artist, I pursued a career as a psychotherapist working with children and adults, which gave me a wealth of experience in human relationships. This prompted me to want to explore my own life experiences and I pursued further studies, doing an MA in fine art at Kingston before undertaking an MA at the Royal College of Art 2018-2020. My RCA dissertation, ‘Working Through’, explored the effects of trauma in the work of several photographers and was awarded a distinction. My work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Creekside Open (2017) and the Royal West of England Academy (2019) Royal Cambrian Academy (2021 and 2022)
SARAH PRAILL
Sarah studied design and illustration at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Her preoccupation with the surface of things and drawing led her to join Slaughterhaus print studio in Stockwell after finishing her Masters in Fine Art at UAL. She drew for many years in the British Museum and loves the Assyrian friezes and off white surfaces. She is exploring ways of embedding ‘presence’ within a surface through drawing, painting and small sculptural objects. It is an archaeology of feeling and locating. She is a member of Hyphae drawing collective. Her career with Thames and Hudson as a book designer informs her thinking. She has three daughters and lives in South London. Artist Website// Hyphae Drawing // Instagram
SVETLANA ATLAVINA
Svetlana Atlavina is a multimedia visual artist, art educator and lecturer at the Buckinghamshire New University. She holds a Master's Degree in Fine Art and Printmaking. Svetlana was awarded participation in a prestigious MA & Other Postgraduates Exhibition, The Atkinson Gallery in 2020 in Somerset.
Svetlana completed a project SVETTA for developing online educational resources, financed by Arts Council England and supported by CPFT NHS. Svetlana explores social issues, deeply rooted within our psychological being. Her research connects empathy, controversial issues, and the role of women in society. The ‘Contested Space’ depicting perils on London’s streets was exhibited twice at the public galleries in London 2017.
CAROLINE LA WHEELER [CLAW]
Caroline LA Wheeler [CLAW] is an artist, jeweller, material researcher and educator who uses her interdisciplinary practice to evoke discussion and mindful reflection on both societal constructs and idiosyncrasies and environmental concerns.
Her responses take form as objects, drawings, film and text, while her process-led, philosophically driven methodology questions and challenges state change and the juxtaposition between strength and fragility.
Themes of migration and displacement are observed in parallel to notions of spatial structure, passage of time, language, ecology and perceived value.
She holds a BA in Cultural Studies & Media Communication, an MA in Art & Material Histories and an MA in Jewellery & Metal from the Royal College of Art.