Next Generation RBSA

I am delighted to have been selected for the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) Next Generation Exhibition, taking place from 2–12 September 2026 at RBSA Gallery, 4 Brook Street, St Paul’s Square, Birmingham, B3 1SA.

The Next Generation RBSA programme is a triennial opportunity for early-career visual artists based within easy reach of the RBSA Gallery. The programme offers a small number of artists the opportunity to benefit from three years of free Society membership, alongside opportunities for professional development, exhibitions and networking.

For this group exhibition, I am showing six works, bringing together different aspects of my practice, from egg tempera and oil paintings to my painted boxes. The works centre on women and the spaces they occupy, exploring recurring themes of health, labour and lived experience. My practice draws upon autobiographical experience, collaborative research and intersectional feminist theory. Through painting, I seek to create space for women’s stories to be represented on their own terms, particularly narratives that have historically been overlooked or marginalised.

The women I paint are active participants in the work. Before beginning a painting, I spend time with my subjects through conversation, informal interviews, drawing and photography. These exchanges are central to my process and often shape the titles of the works, which frequently incorporate the subjects’ own words. Rather than using photography solely as a visual reference, I use it to record both staged and spontaneous moments that emerge through our interactions.

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Drawing is fundamental to my practice. After meeting a subject, I return to the studio and spend time drawing and painting in sketchbooks and on loose sheets of watercolour paper. This process is less about immediately resolving composition or colour and more about spending time with the individual—learning their features, gestures and presence. Through this repetitive and sometimes obsessive process, I develop an understanding of the subject and establish an ongoing dialogue between observation, memory and paint.

Projects and series including Mortal & Strong, SURGE III, Women of the NHS and Women’s Work have enabled me to develop methodologies grounded in collaboration, observation and exchange. Across these projects, I investigate how painting can hold multiple narratives simultaneously and how individual experiences can remain visible within contemporary culture.

The work I am showing at RBSA draws primarily from Women of the NHS and Women’s Work. These paintings explore the experiences of women within professional and caring roles, examining the intersections between identity, labour and visibility. Alongside more traditional oil paintings on canvas and board, I incorporate egg tempera and painted boxes, expanding my understanding of what painting can be and how different materials and formats can communicate experience.

Process and materiality remain significant throughout my practice. I often leave traces of earlier decisions visible, allowing drawings, alterations and underlying structures to remain present within the finished work. By revealing something of the journey of making, I invite viewers into a process of looking, remembering and imagining. For me, re-examining and foregrounding women’s experiences through painting remains both a necessary and radical act.

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The Next Generation RBSA programme also marks a change from the Society’s previous Graduate Artists programme. The new scheme recognises the multitude of ways in which artists begin their careers and actively encourages applications from self-taught artists alongside those who have undertaken arts-related university education.

Following interviews, a selection of artists were invited to exhibit their work as part of the Next Generation RBSA Exhibition. From this group, artists chosen by the RBSA Council will be offered full Membership benefits, including exhibition opportunities at the RBSA Gallery, access to a solo show space, expert guidance and tutoring, involvement in Society activities and invitations to networking events. Successful artists will also have the opportunity to use the NGRBSA designation during their three-year tenure and will be supported in applying for full Society membership at the end of the programme.

I am really pleased to be part of this exhibition and to have the opportunity to share my work alongside other artists at this stage in their careers. I am particularly interested in how the RBSA’s new Next Generation programme creates space for different routes into professional artistic practice.