York Trailblazers
Meet The Artists
Discover the amazing line up of artists in the York Trailblazers Project!
Each artist brings their own diverse set of experience and creativity, and have used their talent to transform these beetle sculptures into an educational and inspiring piece of art.
Follow these artists on socials, and don't forget to check out their sculpture in the city!
Jen Dring
Jen is a printmaker living and working in York, and enjoys creating both linocut and collagraph prints. Her work is inspired by her faith, everyday experiences, moments in nature and places she feels a connection to. She takes on bespoke commissions as well as using her teaching skills to offer linocut and tetra pak workshops.
Sarah Jackson
Having studied languages at University, Sarah came to her own artistic practice much later after completing a City and Guild’s qualification in creative techniques (textiles) in 2013. Sarah has taught print and stitch workshops in schools and delivers workshops and talks for adult groups, too. She loves to create evocative pieces of art using vintage and antique fabrics, threads and papers. These are often inspired by folk art, byzantine art and iconography.
Shannon Reed
Shannon is a part-time artist currently residing in York, and a full-time Biology Undergraduate. Her work focuses on wildlife, paying particular attention to native UK species that are under threat. Shannon's artwork is multi-media, including pointillism portraits of endangered animals to oil paintings on recycled wood. Her work has previously been featured in the University of York's "Long Boi-ology Art Trail" that saw Shannon design and decorate two wooden ducks that sought to raise awareness of the threat that avian influenza and flooding poses to UK wildlife.
Sarah Schiewe
I am a York based artist, and the focus of my creative practise is storytelling through a bespoke ceramic sculpture gift experience. Every individual is different, and we should celebrate these differences. Each person has a set of values, feelings and memories unique to them. I take these impressions and turn them into a bespoke piece of ceramic art for that individual. The profits from my work fund free community art and sculpture workshops to help children develop confidence through creativity. I hand build my stoneware pieces using coil and slab methods and decorate them with oxides, glazes, decals and mixed media.
Leo Morey
Leo Morey is a Cuban painter born in 1995 in the city of Matanzas. He is a graduate of the Fine Art Academy "Diego Querol" of Matanzas. He started producing a series of self portraits bringing up social issues in contemporary Cuba. Leo took part in several exhibitions in his home city as well as he was selected winner of the First Prize at the Annual Exhibition of the Gallery "Pedro Esquerré". He also worked for various private collectors in south Florida during his brief stay in Miami in 2017. In 2018 Leo Morey moved to York UK and 2 years later, influenced by the global pandemic and working in isolation, he commenced the series "Cuba a flor de piel": a more personal collection of paintings inspired by experiences and memories of his home country.
Cathy Simpson
Cathy Simpson studied History of Art at Leicester University, Illustration & Graphic Design at Central St Martins and Archaeological Illustration at Bath University. She has a long track record of working in book publishing, and also exhibiting original artwork at prestigious organisations such as the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and the Society of Wildlife Artists. She is a member of the Association of Illustrators and the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation.
Zoe Phillips
Zoe is an inclusive mixed media artist who explores our connections with objects and the narratives they hold. Her work invites conversations about how we view and interact with the world.
Alex Gray
Hello! My name is Alex Gray and I’m an aspiring theatre designer from Great Ayton near Middlesbrough. I recently graduated with a degree in Theatre and Performance Design from LIPA in Liverpool. I’ve now moved back home to the North East to pursue a career in the arts. Since 2021, I’ve worked as a stagehand at the Darlington Hippodrome. This includes helping with stage, wardrobe and lighting. While I love being on the technical side of theatre, the dream is to be a designer. I love drawing, making, painting and creating with all sorts of materials and techniques and I can’t wait to learn more :) Thank you for finding the Luddite beetle!
Christine Jopling
I’m an illustrator based in Pudsey, Leeds. I love to create fun, colourful images that will brighten the viewer’s day and bring a smile to their face. A little bit wonky, showing texture and brushstrokes, scribbly and freehand, I’m a big fan of “imperfection”! I love to see, and show, the handmade feel of things. I have a particular passion for hand lettering, I enjoy making fun and funky fonts. I love to draw buildings and places, too, showing their intricacies in a quirky way. I’m also particularly fond of drawing humans and creatures – real or imagined – as I love the interactions that can be created.
Sian Ellis
Sian has created art on a national scale and in a range of mediums, ranging from detailed fine drawing and ceramic sculptures to twelve foot paintings and even a metre long knitted head band for a fiberglass gorilla! Sian has created a number of murals around Yorkshire and has worked on a number of charity sculpture trails across the UK, including designing the title character for the Snooks 2024 sculpture trial in York.
Natalie McKeown
Natalie’s practice is multidisciplinary (working across performance, installation, sculpture, textiles and print) with a focus on performance art. Her work has been exhibited both locally (in York and across Yorkshire) and nationally/internationally (Chongqing, London, Glasgow, Oxford). Natalie was a SLAP York Supported Artist for 2022, receiving a commission & residency at York Art Gallery to produce a site-specific performance in response to the Gallery’s exhibition on W.A. Ismay. Works of note include Cease to impose territorial boundaries (performance, York Art Gallery, February 2023), Find Out Who You Are And Do It On Purpose (video installation, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Dec 2016) and I Am The Mother Of A Chemical Reaction (performance, The Whisky Bond (Glasgow), May 2016).
Navigators Art & Performance
Navigators Art & Performance is a fluid collective of York-based artists, writers, musicians and performers. Our primary mission is to work with community groups and projects, to enhance and creatively interpret their activities for a wider audience. Since May 2022 we've been involved with the StreetLife project, York Theatre Royal, the annual Festival of Ideas, and Explore York. We welcome new musicians, artists, poets/spoken word, comics and other performers, particularly those who are less established or underrepresented, and who have no regular platform for displaying their work.
HazardOne
HazardOne was recognised as one of the Top 5 female graffiti artists in the UK [The Guardian] and the Top 25 female street artists worldwide. [The Huffington Post] She combines rich colour palettes with illumination and modern-age glitch effects to create striking portraits using traditional free-hand graffiti techniques. From a 7-storey mural in the heart of St.Pauls Bristol, a community project on the Arizona-Mexico border, to the 79th Floor of 3 World Trade Centre, New York - Her work takes her all over the planet!
Emma Feneley
I am a Recycled Paper Collage Artist, Teaching Assistant and new Mum, living and working in South Bank, York. Sustainability is at the heart of my approach; I stumbled into the colourful world of paper collage when looking for a way to create art without creating waste. I source unwanted papers, magazines, paints, glues and frames and turn them into characterful collages of York, nature and simple pleasures. Paper collage isn’t about being neat or perfect - it’s the wibbly wobbly mistakes that make it better. This really seems to help both children and adults overcome a ‘fear of failure’ with their creativity and is why I also found my way to collage workshops alongside my own artwork.
Jade Blood
Jade is the co-founder of York Zine fest, a biannual celebration of all things DIY, self publishing artists and zine makers! She recieved the contemporary comission in 2023 at York Art Gallery and has been commissioned for various activities at other notable institutions like MIMA, Middlesbrough Art Weekender and The Baltic Gallery.
Jade is a printmaker and celebrates DIY ethos, friendship and sustainability in her work and collaborations. She is currently working on making printing inks from algae and has worked with textile students from Wilberforce Collage to create a sustainable fashion/dinner party for Humber St Gallery, Hull in October. Jade teaches and technicians at Bootham School and an associate lecturer on the Fine Art Course at YSJU!