Denise Startin
Coventry
Artist and researcher
Denise Startin is an artist, writer, researcher and collector. Her current practice and research are organised around four routes, place, memory, history and identity. She is particularly engaged with concepts of heritage, landscape, archaeology, performativity, representation, narrative, mapping and embodied entanglements. Denise studied at the Royal College of Art and her practice encompasses movement, image, photography, printmaking, site-based interventions, installation, critical and performance writing. She uses various strategies of production including image and text, autobiography, polyphony, the intimate and fact and fiction, a continually recurring relation is the tension between public and private realms. During this process a historical figure, site, place, event, voice or voices are adopted to activate the work and produce a narrative arc.
Place has long been a theoretical, philosophical and practical concern woven throughout her practice. Denise is particularly interested in the concept of place as a dynamic network of relations that is co-created and continually mapped which contributes to and affects how autobiographical identity is situated. She is currently seeking to investigate a methodological tool and how it can be addressed as a form of mediating specific modes of cultural memory through the medium of place. This dialogue seeks to highlight the significance and complex character of visual, textual, artefactual and embodied experiences of place in constructing and mediating personal narratives of cultural identity and belonging in order to perform their retrieval, survival, communication and recreation. Sites chosen for their historical, national, symbolic or mythological significance include Brontë country, West Yorkshire, The Devils Bridge, Aberystwyth and St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall.
Denise is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD in the Place-based and site responsive practice research cluster at the University of Leeds.
Education
PhD Candidate, Leeds School of Design, Place-based and site responsive practice, 2023-2026
MA Fine Art, Royal College of Art, London, 2011-2013 (with Distinction in Research)
BA (Hons. 1st Class) Fine Art, Coventry University, 2003-2009
Exhibitions
2024 Hints for British Tourists, Solo Show, Floor One Gallery, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Little Elborow Street, Rugby
2022/23 Rugby Open, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Little Elborow Street, Rugby
2022 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, The Fireworks Factory, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London
2022 RBSA Prize Exhibition, 4 Brook Street, St.Paul's Square, Birmingham
2022 Hints for British Tourists, Solo Show, CT20 Gallery, 73 Tontine Street, Folkestone
2022 Fronteer Independent Art Fair, CASC Gallery, Northgate Street, Chesteer
2022 Hints for British Tourists, Solo Show, City Arcadia Gallery, Coventry
2022 Warwickshire Open Studios, Holyhead Studios, Coventry
2022 Royal Cambrian Academy, Open Competition, Conwy, Wales
2021 ‘Spotlight On’: Visual Arts mini-festival, Coventry City of Culture, Coventry
2021 Compton Verney Print Fair, Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, Warwickshire
2019 Coventry Printmakers’ Inaugural Open Call Exhibition, CLASS ROOM, Coventry
2017 Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art, Coventry Evening Telegraph Building, Coventry
2015 Stewart’s Law, RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London/A4 Space, Dubai
2014 Tightly Bound, Solo Show, Denise Startin Studio & Micro Gallery, FarGo Village, Coventry
2014 Spirit of Place, Ragley Gallery & Studios, Ragley Hall, Warks
2014 Warwickshire Open Studios/Micro Performance Lectures, Dangling Modifiers & A Curious Love Letter, Ragley Gallery & Studios, Ragley Hall, Warks
2014 Stuart's Law, RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London
2013 Multiplied, Christie's, London
2013 RCA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London
2013 RCA Secret, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
2013 Parallax, Cafe Gallery Projects, Bermondsey, London
2012 Interim, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
2012 I took the lift to the 6th Floor, Cafe Gallery Projects, Bermondsey, London
2011 Perverse Library with Information as Material, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2010 Lewis Gallery, Rugby School, Rugby
2010 RCA Secret, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
2009 Ampersand, Solo Show, Coventry Kuntsverein, Coventry University
2009 Coventry University Degree Show, Coventry
2009 ID Partnership Architects, Spon Street, Coventry
2009 Free Range, Truman Brewery, London
2009 Entrance, Fishbone Gallery, Longford, Coventry
2007 RBSA Gallery, Birmingham
Publications
2024 Upcoming: An Altered Landscape – Contemporary Landscape Photography Journal (online) 2023 “Dangling Modifiers” HAUS A REST Magazine, Issue 37 Alter Ego’s (online)
2013 between before and after, RCA Printmaking, London (Writer, Editing Team)
2013 Parallax, Cafe Gallery Projects, London (invited Writer/Editor)
2013 Ariadne’s Dance Floor: Choragraphy and the Ecstatic Subject, MA Diss. Distinction (unpublished)
2013 Transference, Limited Edition Box Set, Royal College of Art, London
2009 Research and References, The Act of Drawing, VIVID, Birmingham
2009 Forward Press Poetry Anthology, West Midlands
Lectures, Conferences, Symposiums
2024 Artist Talk, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Little Elborow Street, Rugby
2023 Beyond Bablake Lecture Series, Bablake School, Coventry
2023 Practice Led PhD Symposium, FAHACS, University of Leeds
Residencies
2023 Upcoming: Dark Skies, Wild Seas, Ancient Places, Cot Valley, Cornwall (selected)
2023 Immersive Analogue, Tanners Hatch, Dorking, Surrey (selected)
2014-2015 Micro Residency, Artist Researcher (Interpretation), Field Archaeology Team, The National Trust, Erddig Hall & Gardens, Nr Wrexham, Wales (self-initiated, facilitated by Kathryn Laws, Archaeologist for the National Trust)
2011 Body Landscape, Lake District, led by dancer/choreographer Frank van de Ven, Body Weather, Amsterdam (selected)
Awards & Collections
2023 VAA Visual Art Open Prize (longlisted)
2023 Boodle Hatfield Printmaking Prize (shortlisted)
2023 SPACEX Symposium Bursary, Coventry University/Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art
2023 Coventry Local Artists Development Fund, Theatre Absolute, Coventry
2021 VAA Visual Art Open Prize (shortlisted)
2020 Creative Dialogies Bursary, The Pod, Coventry
2015 Coventry University PhD Bursary
2013 Royal College of Art Special Collections (also Private Collections)
2013 Mathew Wrightson Charity Trust Award (panel selection)
2012 Royal College of Art Bursary, London
2011 Royal College of Art Bursary, London
2009 Karen Trussells Award for Fine Art (juried award)
Performance
2019 "Dangling Modifiers" and A Curious Love Letter, Micro Performance Lectures, Artspace, Holyhead Studios, Coventry
2017-2018 Chronically Fatigued; Performing Self Care, Solo Performance, Coventry
2014 "Dangling Modifiers" and A Curious Love Letter, Micro Performance Lectures, Ragley Gallery & Studios, Ragley Hall, Warks
2013-2015 Enduring Exhaustion, London, Coventry & Wales
2012 Phil Minton’s Feral Choir, The Book of the Dead, British Museum, London
2011 Letter to Alessa, Performance Lecture, Royal College of Art, London
Collaborations
2000-2012 Performing Primary Care (for her, for him) in collaboration with Keith Swain, Coventry/London
2012 Enough Different, Critical Writing Department/AND Publishing, Royal College of Art, London
2010 Consumer Transposition, Territorial Play, Radiator Festival, Nottingham
2010 Very Public People, The Public, West Bromwich
2009 Invitation to Dialogue: 100 Possible Understandings of This, John Hammersley, VIVID, Birmingham
Professional Experience
2022 Kitchen Garden Volunteer, Charterhouse, Historic Coventry Trust, Coventry
2021 Non-Executive Director, Holyhead Studios, Coventry
2021 Artist Interviewer, underGROWTH, The Pod, Coventry
2017 Curatorial Assistant, Coventry Archaeology Archives, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry
2015 Guest Tutor, Coventry University, Faculty of Arts & Humanities
2014-2015 Archaeological Investigator and Field Researcher, National Trust, Erddig Hall & Gardens, Nr Wrexham, Wales
2014 Freelance WordPress Engineer, Ragley Gallery and Studios website
2012 Visiting Lecturer, Coventry School of Art & Design, Coventry University
2012 Production Assistant, Para-Active, Hotel Medea, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London
2009 Curatorial Research Assistant, The Act of Drawing, VIVID, Birmingham
2007 Research Assistant, Dance to the Muzik of Time, John Goto/Arts Council West Midlands, Derby University
2000-2002 Assistant Marketing Communications Manager, Alliance and Leicester Plc, Leicester
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