Possibilities of Chance

A satellite exhibition in the Finishing Room.

Anna Lilleengen

Anna Lilleengen produces handcrafted photographs, often using vintage cameras and handmade negatives. These are shown both as traditionally darkroom processed contact prints in silver gelatin or as large scale giclée prints.  

Shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2014 and included in their Art Anthology 2014 publication of “100 most exciting contemporary artists”. In 2013 she won the Vantage Art Prize. She has recently been awarded a Leeds Inspired small grant to produce new work in her local community, Rothwell. Since gaining a distinction in her MA Time and Image Based Media (Harrogate School of Art and Design) in 2012, she has held over 10 solo exhibitions in the UK and abroad, as well as contributing to group shows.  

The cameras which Anna uses (one from the 1870s , the other from the 1930s) tally with periods of intense production (and the latter, of crisis) within the mill. By highlighting work made with tools from according eras, she draws the community’s attention to the history which several of their forebears took part in.  

Brisbane Taylor  

Predominantly a process-led artist, Brisbane explores creative mark making through the use of a variety of materials, which are subjected to a range of interventions and disruptions, including randomness, chance, and external forces such as weather and fire. She seeks to create work which is aesthetically pleasing and physically tangible, for the viewer to engage with and relate to as a way of making abstract art more accessible. 

She is fascinated by the relationship between the role of the artist, materials used, and external forces in the creative process of mark-making and final outcome. The interplay between them seeks to mimic the twists and turns of life, including the expected and the unexpected, the intentional and the unintentional, control and freedom, order and disorder. 

She has created a large installation based on the exhibition theme “Departure” using paper and charcoal. The work is suspended within the space with one end trailing on the floor to lead the viewer’s eye on a journey. The nature of charcoal’s instability will mean that the work will continue to evolve, develop and change, deteriorating over time within the space, reflecting life and the changes which have occurred over time in the Mill. 

By exhibiting in a disused space within the old mill buildings  Brisbane provides an opportunity for people to view both art and buildings in new and accessible ways.  

Brisbane graduated in 2012 from Bradford College with a first class degree in Fine Art. She is currently developing her art practice as a professional artist and looking for opportunities to exhibit her work in spaces which may attract the wider community to engage in the arts by making it more accessible.