JACQUELINE WYLIE

JACQUELINE WYLIE

Visual Artist

I am a visual artist working with a variety of materials: wool, photography, video, text, and social media to draw and paint with, preferring to use simple readily available materials and processes to explore how we place value on creativity. Much of my art is playful with a serious intent: to test and resist the boundaries of what is valued and considered ‘art’ or ‘craft’ by strategically using materials and processes often considered low value or non-art. For example, I often use hand knitting to draw attention to the historically gendered associations of those materials and processes. Most recently I have been considering how preconceptions about gender, age and disability continue to have a profound affect on the critical reception and value given to an artist and their work.

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This is an exciting time for me as an artist because in 2017 I successfully completed a PhD at Ulster University researching contemporary artists’ use of social media and the consequences on their studio practice. I also relocated my studio base from Rogue Studios in Manchester to Creative Exchange in East Belfast with the goal of establishing a postdoctoral studio practice based in Northern Ireland.

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This activity has been supported by several generous and significant awards from The Department of Education & Learning in Northern Ireland; the Artists Career Enhancement Scheme (Arts Council Northern Ireland Lottery Funding); and StudioBook, (Mark Devereux Projects, Arts Council England, University of Salford & ArtWork Atelier, Salford). In 2017 I received an Individual Disabled/Deaf Artists Award and a Support for the Individual Artist General Award (Arts Council Northern Ireland Lottery Funding, and Arts & Disability Forum, Belfast) to support my current research and art making.

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In the next twelve months I will continue to build on the valuable mentoring and feedback I received during this period, to transition from PhD candidate to early career researcher, making ambitious new work that will raise my visibility and reputation, thus contributing to my longer-term development as a professional artist with a disability.