THE ARTISTS Joy Collective fosters exceptional professional emerging or mid-career visual and performing artists by presenting their work in new ways to new audiences, thereby encouraging them to develop an open approach to taking artistic risks, embracing new technologies and working collaboratively. So far, the following artists have been part of Joy Collective: VISUAL ARTISTS Beth Carter Darren Harvey-Regan Alice Leach Emma Molony Ione Rucquoi Helen Snell DANCE ARTISTS/CHOREOGRAPHERS Clair Beckett Joanna Cartwright Jane Castree Curt Hennells Oliver Hornsby-Sayer DIGITAL ARTISTS/FILMMAKERS Eleanor Carr Roger Lewis Stuart Mitchell Carl Shanahan MUSIC ARTISTS Kris Jager Mila Oshin Please scroll down for short biographies of each artist and click their name to be taken to their website (where applicable). BETH CARTER Sculptor, Painter Beth Carter is one of the most prolific and sought after emerging artists in the South West. After completing a Fine Arts degree at Sunderland University, she studied devotional/mythological sculpture in Sri Lanka and India and travelled to several different countries over five continents to explore different cultures and their art. Her life-size bronze and fabric sculptures, delicate silver miniatures and charcoal drawings, all creations of a rich allegorical world in which human and animal form are integrated, are now catching the attention from galleries and collectors all over the world. Earlier this year a selection of her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy. For Joy Collective's full-length showcase, Beth is presenting some of her existing sculptural work and drawings, as well as a new collaborative digital media piece with fellow Joy Collective artist Stuart Mitchell and Drunk With Joy. DARREN HARVEY-REGAN Photography Artist Award-winning photography artist Darren Harvey-Regan manages at once to adopt and question dominant conventions of landscape photography. Through subtle gestural interventions, both within the landscape and the photographic process, he creates a disturbed aesthetic which evokes a strongly subjective and contemplative response and leads the viewer away from reading his images as topographic depictions of place or interpreting them in the traditional ways landscape photography typically dictates. His distinctive and innovative take on the genre has just landed him a place at the Royal College of Art where he started his MA last Autumn. ALICE LEACH Painter, Text Artist Alice Leach received a First Class degree from City & Guilds of London Art School in 1993. She found her niche when she was forced to face the inherent conflict of being an artist and a single mother a few years ago. Combining drawing, painting and the spoken word, she started putting her most intimate, private and uncensored thoughts and feelings on paper on an almost daily basis, creating the visual diary which has now become the ever-growing embodiment of her art practice. Her life-long fascination with the raw and immediate art of Dubuffet, Cy Twombly and Canadian Inuit artists becomes evident in this moving body of work in which the fragility of everyday life is exposed. EMMA MOLONY Print Artist Born in Zimbabwe, Emma Molony moved to East Devon at the age of three where she recently returned after a three year printmaking course in Venice. Her unique practice is inspired by short stories of writers such as the witty and sometimes macabre Hector Hugh Munro. Each of her bodies of work starts off as a set of original black and white drawings which are screenprinted and merged with monotypes of related found objects before being transformed into large fabric or paper wallhangings. As part of Joy Collective, Emma has for the first time taken a song as her inspiration and created work for film. IONE RUCQUOI Multi-Media Artist Recently featured in Sunday Times Magazine, Ione Rucquoi’s latest body of work is beautiful as well as macabre, comical as well as tragic and derogatory as well as complimentary towards its subjects. Through it, she investigates and exposes humanity’s modern day obsession with, in particular, female appearance and the implications of this obsession in terms of our sense of reality and connection with our natural selves. Rucquoi uses a variety of media including textiles, painting, make-up, design and prosthetic sculpture and created each element of these sensational, controversial and complex photographic works from scratch, without the use of any digital enhancement. HELEN SNELL Print Artist Helen Snell is interested in the process of reproduction (printmaking, digital media, etc.) and the theme of reproduction (with reference to the ethical debate surrounding biotechnology, genetics, sex and consumerism). Unusually, as a printmaker, her work is informed by the idea of the imperfect edition. She sees the subversion of the idea of the perfect or first edition as a metaphor for the paradoxical relationship between group identity and individuality. Printed images and multiples also enable a process of vulgarisation, undermining the obsession with originality, so that content becomes the primary concern. The repetition of the same imagery echoes our obsession with labels and brands as assurances of quality and also, paradoxically, echoes our fears provoked by images of cloning and other genetic interventions. Helen Snell’s installations at times remain small units, and at times grow - subjected to systematic modifications - to colonise the space they are presented in. CLAIRE BECKETT Dance Artist, Performer Clair Beckett completed her BA (Hon) in Dance Performance at Middlesex University last year. She has worked with Cloud Dance Company, Corali Dance Company and The Doris Humphrey Foundation in Chicago, USA, and has performed at venues such as Sadlers Wells, Stratford Circus Theatre, Arts Depot and The Place. Her main interest lies in pushing the boundaries of dance, which has led her to collaborate in community dance, film, theatre, music and visual arts. Clair is a Community Dance Practitioner with Attik Dance and recently also worked as Rehearsal Director for US Choreographer/Dance & Media Artist Stephen Koplowitz’s Liquid Landscapes project at Dartington. As part of Joy Collective's showcase, Clair has devised and performs a new dance theatre piece inspired by one of the songs on Drunk With Joy's forthcoming album, and also collaborates with Joanna Cartwright on new Joy Collective dance film project 'Elemental (The Reins)'. JOANNA CARTWRIGHT Choreographer, Dance Artist, Performer Joanna Cartwright only decided to become a professional dancer after she completed a degree in Microbiology at Plymouth University. She started a strict retraining regimen and has not looked back since. She now works freelance for a variety of theatres and dance companies as a choreographer and dance artist and recently worked with world class hip hop artist Banxy, choreographing two pieces of work that were performed by at the Breakin’ Convention 2009. She was the Movement Director for the critically acclaimed Theatre Royal Young Company production of Medea in 2008 and continues to teach the Young Company. She devised the choreography and was the Project Manager for Dance for Joy Collective’s new dance/film/music/performance collaboration 'Elemental (The Reins)' and will also perform a solo dance work as part of Joy Collective's showcase, in collaboration with digital media artist Stuart Mitchell and Drunk With Joy. JANE CASTREE Choreographer, Dancer Jane Castree began her dance training at Newcastle College. From there she went on to study at London Contemporary Dance School, attaining a Ba (Hons) in Contemporary Dance. After five years as a freelance artist Jane moved to the South West to undertake an MA in Choreography at Dartington College of Arts. Currently she is working as a co-facilitator for Wheelfever, a Plymouth based integrated dance group, delivering workshops and choreographing alongside Kuldip Singh-Barmi. Jane is one of Joy Collective's newest recruits and is looking forward to performing with them. CURT HENNELLS Dance Artist, Filmmaker, Performer Curt Hennells studied Dance Theatre at Laban and London Contemporary Dance School. He has worked with many well-known directors as a dancer and with his own young company CASHdance he choreographed and devised critically acclaimed movement and video installation ‘Pulled to Bits’, which had a 2-week run at ECHOspace in London. He is currently working on a film with Rosanna Irvine & Peter Anderson and is completing a new solo dance film/performance ‘Pathogen’, set to tour in 2009/10. For Joy Collective he has devised and will perform a strongly dynamic part-improvised piece, based on one of his latest solo works Urban Invisibilities. OLIVER HORNSBY-SAYER Dance Artist, Performer Oliver Hornsby-Sayer is an Assistant Practitioner for Theatre Royal TR2 and was the Assistant Movement Director for the Young Company’s production of Medea in 2008. He was also a member of Devon Youth Dance company for 2 years in which he performed at Sadler’s Wells for Youth Dance England. He has run his own dance company TANZ.co for 3 years, with which he toured around Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. Incredibly, he is only eighteen and has just finished his A-levels in dance, drama and photography. Sadly for Joy Collective, Oliver is off to London to study dance theatre at Laban this September, but we wish him all the best of luck of course! Oliver was choreography assistant for and performed for Joy Collective’s dance/film/music/performance collaboration 'Elemental (The Reins)', through which he will still be part of Joy Collective’s showcase, if only on screen. ELEANOR CARR Installation Artist, Filmmaker London born Eleanor Carr completed her BA Hons in Fine Art and Art History at University of Plymouth in 2007, after doing her foundation degree at Falmouth College of Art and Design. She accidentally learned to scuba dive in 2001 and has been seduced by the variety of underwater architecture ever since. Her experiences, including beautiful as well as repelling, exciting and alarming aspects of underwater imagery, inspire most of her practice. For Joy Collective, she revisited ‘Ballad to a Saab 900’; a story about the sea and a car. It is a personal story, a myth and a fragment of timeless memory told in 3 verses, the second of which has been re-presented for Joy Collective. Inspired by Drunk With Joy’s ‘To Be Free’, this re-telling of Verse 2 includes elements that might have been lost, or that might have been created, or may just have gone unnoticed in the original telling of the story. That is the nature of stories - like the sea there is always momentum shifting to one state from another. There is never an end. ROGER LEWIS Painter, Sculptor, Designer, Filmmaker Roger Lewis came to Joy Collective through his cover artwork for Drunk With Joy’s EP and debut album. His incredible range of artistic talents has led him to become a respected name in many fields including figurative and conceptual painting, sculpture, filmmaking, design and modelmaking. He has worked on solo and collaborative independent projects as well as on major feature films such as Lord of the Rings. Roger is currently busy completing several commissions in mainland Europe and working closely with Drunk With Joy and Joy Collective on a film to be shot in 2010. STUART MITCHELL Digital Video & Animation Artist, Filmmaker Stuart Mitchell studied Digital Art and Technology at Plymouth University and is fast becoming an important name in his field. He produces screen-based as well as installation and live work that incorporates computer vision/motion sensing, generative sound synthesis and sound localisation technologies. Stuart has worked as a filmmaker, DOP, editor, VJ and animator for a variety of professional artists, projects, arts organisations and festivals. He created two new video/animation pieces for Joy Collective's first showcase, one of which features work by sculptor Andrea Gregson. He is the technical mastermind behind the video production and artwork visualisation for Joy Collective and his work has been pivotal in realising Drunk With Joy's artistic vision for it. CARL SHANAHAN Filmmaker, Editor TBC KRIS JAGER (Joy Collecive Artistic Co-Director) Music Artist Please click here to go back to the Drunk With Joy homepage where you will find links to further information about Kris Jager. MILA OSHIN (Joy Collective Artistic Co-Director) Music Artist, Lyricist, Performer Please click here to go back to the Drunk With Joy homepage where you will find links to further information about Mila Oshin.