Daisy Billowes
" Ultimately, my multi-disciplined practice opens up a debate between female restraints within mythical narrative, the qualities of media through tactile mark-making, and creates questions about works viewed post-internet age and the tricky landscape that they now inhabit.
The work chooses its own form, and I am here to help it through that process. My practice is circular: it feeds into itself. It enjoys this strong, playful, material-based aesthetic, creating dis[order] and disruption to try and make sense of a drawing practice in a digital age.
Materiality is extremely important in my practice. I see it as a tool to bring people closer physically with the works. My practice takes on its own form of ‘drawing’ and ‘consciousness’ and presents to the viewer the tactile nature of drawing with human reflection, digital narration and abstraction. Colour is a medium and is utilised through drawing with line and negative space.
An important distinction is that the works are the feeling - they’re not describing it. The undeniable, seductive nature of myth is that it’s a meta-language. It does what art does and resonates across time. It touches you, and you think it’s completely yours, when really it’s just looking for you. Barthes describes myth as a thin film to view work through and in the same way my poetic texts feed us narratives about the unfair treatment of women - the idea of being stuck in a vessel that substantially limits what’s achievable. We acknowledge in this: a visual language whereby process and meaning are intrinsically linked. I join together written word, image and drawn line, with image-coding forming a bridge-like support between them. "
Biograhy
Daisy Billowes is a London based artist, raised in Athens. She studied at Newcastle University (2015) and the Royal College of Art, London (2017).
Solo Exhibitions
March/April 2020
- four disproportionately sized chambers, The Stone Space, Leytonstone, London
Group Shows
2023
- Insights Inside, Blossom Art Agency, Annecy, France
2022
- Fair Art Fair X The Auction Collective, Online Sale
- Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London
2021
- London Creative Network Recipient, SPACE London, London
2019
- Exceptional, The Collyer Bristow Graduate Art Award,
- The London Ultra, Bargehouse, London
- Summer Group Show 2019, The Muse Gallery, London
- Reckless Rawness, Coleman Project Space, London
- Woolwich Contemporary Editions, Always Sunday House, Bath
2018
- Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London
- Print Demonstration, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London
- Selected Artist for Woolwich Editions, London
- Festival of Print ELP @ 20, The Art Pavilion, Clinton Road, Mile End Park
- Macmillan Charity Silent Auction, The Sea Containers London
- RCA Secret 2018, Courtyard Galleries, RCA, Kensington, London
2016
- Notice: Dyson Building, Battersea, London
- DIS PLAY, CGP Gallery, Southwark Park, London
- WIP Show Open House, RCA Battersea, London
2015
- NCL Degree Show, SCIN Gallery, London
- Newcastle University Degree Show, Newcastle University
- ‘GRABADORAS’, 36 Lime Street
- Utopia, Newcastle
2014
- Proof, XL Gallery, Newcastle
2012
- 2D exhibition, Long Gallery, Newcastle
Residencies
August 2022
- Radical Residency VII, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London
2021
- Old Jet Residency, Old Jet, Suffolk
Talks & Workshops
November 2022
- Life Work Art Artists Talk & Crits, Newcastle University
- 2-day master workshop ‘control-c’, Newcastle University
20th November 2018
- Artist’s Talk: East London Printmakers, London,
2017
- Plymouth College of Art: Artist’s Talk Daisy Billowes
2016
- Symposium: The Relevance of Print in Contemporary Art Education. An artist's talk as part of the International Print Biennale, Newcastle
Prizes
2019
- Signature Art Prize, Trinity Art Gallery, London
2018
- Signature Art Prize Shortlist Exhibition, Somerset House, London
