Kaitlyn Bullen is a jewellery maker based in West Yorkshire. She studied Art History at the University of Leeds, and has a background in commercial garment design, specialising in repurposing damaged clothing.
She came to an art and design practice in her late twenties, and since then, has been navigating the challenges of access to arts education for adults outside of the traditional system. An advocate of lifelong learning, Kaitlyn attended jewellery making evening classes at Swarthmore Education Centre, and chose self-study, experimenting and play as alternative forms of learning.
Kaitlyn’s practice is an enquiry into her physical body’s relationship to consciousness and surroundings.
Informed by Somatic practices, Jungian psychology, Surrealism, and Non-Dual philosophy, she uses her body as a tool to explore and process her unconscious whilst still considering its physicality and relationship to the world around.
The pieces shown reflect a period of anxiety/depersonalisation experienced by the artist and the horror and confusion of inhabiting a physical body situated in space.
Kaitlyn works with molten silver, allowing it to take on uncanny and unpredictable forms. She utilises sand and cuttlefish casting, allowing the natural world to leave its mark. Also displayed are automatic drawings, found objects, fragments of writing and dreams; tools used to process this experience which form the basis of her jewellery designs. Jewellery has become her chosen medium because of its direct contact and relationship with the human body.
