J R Oatts

J R Oatts is an abstract artist whose practice centres on "colour in motion". She is interested in how movement can be felt across temporal, spatial and material dimensions. Her work begins by using colour and gesture in an intuitive way, but develops into an exploration of how materials, including paint, fabric, print, sound and found objects, can hold histories, identities, memories and hidden meanings.

Her recent research has focused on Macclesfield’s silk heritage and its connections to wider global silk routes and systems of exchange. She is interested in fabric as a surface where ideas of power, labour and identity can be negotiated and reimagined, and where fabric’s ability to conceal and reveal, mimic and disguise, can become a device for telling new stories.

I'm based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, but I grew up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and then spent many years living and working in and around London. Over the years I've worked in the creative industries as a journalist, filmmaker, radio presenter and advertising creative director, but art has always been my first love.

I've exhibited in London and across the UK, at Manchester Art Fair and art markets in London and the north west. I'm in my final year of an online MA Fine Art with Falmouth University, and have my final show, a site-specific body of work based around the silk heritage of Macclesfield, in November 2026.

As well as my own work,  I work on commission for sculpture and art trails, murals, theatre groups and taken part in live painting events. I also I working as a 1-2-1 art-based coach and host and facilitate community-based workshops for wellbeing, something I'm passionate about having lived experience of chronic pain and mental health issues.