Since her undergraduate degree in Sculpture, Rosie has explored ways of using installations to create emotional responses.
The ones shown below are all clothing based, using materials and scale to tell an emotional story.
Installation Works
Artist TakeOver @ Prism- Art Without Barriers. Emotional Creatures Final Exhibition December 2024
Prism - ’Art Without Barriers’ is an NPO organisation who support learning disabled and neurodivergent artists in the Carlisle and Cumberland area. As part of the Shared Prosperity Fund, they were able to put together a mentoring programme where artists experienced in working in this sector mentored other artists keen to gain skills, over a couple of months and 6 sessions. I am neurodivergent myself and was very pleased to work with Nanette Maden who is very skilled and enthusiastic for art education. Together we explored how to create ambitious art by exploring scale, emotion, space mapping and installation. The process was intense and planning was responsive each week to what was taking place each session and how participant artists responded. We explored large and small scale drawing, mono printing, gel printing, felt making, and exploring many different aspects of a space through map making and sketching. We were able to create and present these large scale emotional creatures in the old Methodist church hall on Fisher Street, Carlisle, with each artist taking ownership of the making, positioning and lighting of their sculpture. All in all it was a gloriously celebratory exhibition where possibilities were stretched and risks taken. I hope these sessions will continue to inspire the participants in their own creative practices and I look forward to seeing how Nanette progresses in her journey as a creative workshop practitioner.
All of Us, Together. Workington Art Trail, Cumbria. November 2024- February 2025. HSBC Bank, Workington
I was one of 3 artists selected to work with a community group in Workington to create a piece of work and then to create my own personal response. I was put with Moorclose Community Centre and we discussed memories and precious objects, especially with the context of the losses that come with a loved one suffering dementia, a subject personal to me through caring for my own mother and father. We brought in objects and photos of what mattered to us and created a series of drawings. These were then scanned into a digital pattern that slowly disappears across the four dresses in the installation, as the lights grown dimmer. The dresses were sewn by the group and my paintings are of collections of everyday objects belonging to the group, an attempt to highlight what we have in common with each other, no matter who we are.
More detailed information ca be found on the Workington Art Trail website. The project was supported by Cumberland Council and Arts Council England.
Class, Covid, and Cumbria - Blackwell the Arts and Crafts House, Windermere November 2021 -February 2022
This piece was publicly commissioned by Blackwell and Lakeland Arts to explore and express the experiences of all Cumbrians during the first lockdown in 2020.
The piece comprises of 16 different digital pattern designs that have been made up into everyday items of clothing.
More information on the commission and patterns can be found on menu tab above.
Single Use - The Rheged Centre, Penrith - June to December 2019.
‘Single Use’ 2019. Polythene sheeting, acetate, invisible thread.
This piece was conceived in response to the plastic pollution crisis and Rosie’s concerns about fast fashion and the growing mountain of clothing entering landfill sites.
She encountered ocean plastic pollution first hand in 2011 whilst visiting Santa Maria, an Azorean island in the Atlantic. On a coastal walk she came across a cove that was completely covered in pieces of plastic of all shapes and sizes. Her feelings of deep concern have grown the more she has read about the pollution crisis and its impact on wildlife.
‘Single Use’ was suspended like a plastic bag floating in water and Rosie hoped its presence and scale would allow others to reflect on how we all use plastic and clothing in our lives and so will hopefully strive for more sustainable decisions when purchasing clothing and single use items.
It was shown alongside the Thread: Contemporary Textiles Exhibition showing in the Rheged Centre Gallery at the time.
Post Graduate Degree Show 2018 - The Glasgow School of Art
The degree show was an accumulation of a year of intense experimentation and discovery. Rosie explored all kinds of unconventional media, such as plants, mould, cement, and household paints - all relating back to an initial interest in dereliction and nature reclaiming civilisation. At the beginning of the Masters, Rosie lost her oldest brother after his being in a coma for 14 years following an accident. As the oldest brother of the 12 siblings, his passing had enormous impact on the family and also on the work produced by Rosie in the year following. This installation is about loss, about the familiar becoming unfamiliar, sibling relationships, and trying to grow again from a dark place. The distorted cement dress is a symbol of the shock of bereavement and trying to understand the impact of death. Rosie also lost her aunt in the same year and was honoured to be with her at her passing. The way a body can so quickly become an empty vessel when the person departs impacted on this piece.
Good Intentions - Vallum Gallery June 25th - July 20th 2018
‘Good Intentions’ 2018 Shoes, Cement, plastic sheet, cotton sheet, duct tape.
As part of her solo show at the Vallum Gallery at University of Cumbria, Rosie created this installation with odd shoes. The actual shoes had been donated to a refugee charity but were completely useless and only fit for landfill. Rosie received a grant from GSA Sustainability at Glasgow School of Art, to pick up the shoes from Telford and avoid them going into landfill. The title relates to the way people want to help others but often don’t know how, especially in light of the Syrian refugee crisis. Rosie invited Carlisle Refugee Action Group to put up an information board next to the piece explaining the work they do helping refugees in Calais. The gold duct tape represents a line of resistance in first world countries to let these people in.
This installation which highlights British responses to the plight of Refugees, offering useless help and being able to keep the crisis at a distance through TV and computer screens while treating the border to our own country as a means to block others from compassion. The use of shoes echoes historic crimes against humanity such as the holocaust and give a humanity to the individuals caught up in the crisis.