Josie Beszant
In my mixed media work I explore a personal and cultural history through found object sculpture assemblage and collage. My work takes discarded objects from the past and through the reworking of them attempts to speak about the present and future. It looks at decay and preservation,the aged, worn and supposedly imperfect. The work makes connections between people who have long gone from this world and our current experience of the world, it . It examines collections, why we collect and how objects preserve memory and storytelling.
Selected Exhibitions/Projects/Commissions:
2017: Ryedale Museum, Hutton Le Hole, Collections
2016: Fringe Arts Festival Bath, The Man Who Bought Stonehenge
2015: Project After Birth, White Moose Gallery, Barnstaple UK
2014: “The Cold Bath Road Mystery” commissioned by Chrysalis Arts for the Yorkshire Festival working with storyteller Matthew Bellwood and puppeteer Vivien Mousdell.
2013: “Treasured Fragments” solo show Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire.
2013: “Kilter Kelter” Cupola Gallery Sheffield.
2012/15/16: International Collage exhibition and exchange New Zealand
2012: Ontoglogical Museum Collage Centennial Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
2011-17: Part of North Yorkshire Open Studios
2010: Lost and Found solo show at Farfield Mill Sedbergh
Residencies/Visiting artist:
2016: Artist in residence/guest speaker Portsmouth University conference: Modernity and the European mind: writing the past, constructing identities
2010: Guest artist (alongside Rosie Scott Massie) at the postcard fair, part of the Edwardian Postcard Project at Lancaster University
2006: Artist in residence at the UK Synaesthesia Conference at Oxford University
Publications
2015: International Assemblage ed Dale Copeland Puniho Art Press