Based in Byker and born in Northumberland, Sean Alec Auld’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in these locations, which hold profound significance in shaping his artistic expression. His work explores the essence of connectivity in a fragmented world through interweaving themes: stone sculpture, ecology, spirituality, traditional storytelling, ritual, mythology, archetypal symbolism and animism. 

Through the creation of immersive spaces and evocative bodies of work, Auld aims to inspire individuals to reclaim their innate ability for meaning-making, forging and rekindling connections with their own imagination, thoughts and emotions.

Mani Kambo is a multidisciplinary Artist, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She explores the inner spirit by drawing on her own personal totemic symbols. Influenced by her upbringing in a Sikh household filled with superstition, prayer and religious ceremony. Textile, fabric dying and printmaking is rooted in Kambo’s family history within the caste system. She focuses on objects, routines and rituals distilled both from the everyday and mythology.​

Her work records movement and documents performative actions – the hand that creates the action, fire that reveals, water which is the purifier and eyes that perceive: through the exploration of totemic objects and symbols. Through layering and editing images together she collages narratives and weaves dreamscapes. These visuals are repeated throughout her work like markers linking to notions of spirituality and belief in reincarnation.

Laurie Powell is an artist based in the North East of England, with a material-led practice that is intimately linked to the ecology and history of the region. All the materials he works with are grown locally or collected directly from his surroundings to create a material culture that is unique and sustainable.

Through this methodology, Powell explores alternative ways of engaging with the natural systems that sustain us. In part, this is a response to the climate crisis, but it is also rooted in the sense of excitement and satisfaction that he gets from working in such a way.

Bethany Stead is an artist working between drawing, painting, sculpture and textiles, interested in materials that are historically associated with class, gender and sexuality. She uses clay, wood, fabric and paper to generate conversations, visual stories, and forms of escapism in response to social and societal barriers.

Drawings and sculptures stand as characters residing within imagined, unsettling or idyllic spaces. Metamorphic, animalistic and anthropomorphic, Stead attempts to explore the discomfort and awkwardness of inhabiting a body, the history of bodily health, the human connection to clothing and costume, worship and religion, and our relationship with the non-human sphere. Symbolism and archetypes thread through her work, influenced by intergenerational storytelling and personal writing as a form of therapy, looking at psychoanalysis, animism, magical realism and folklore.

Jed Buttress is an award-winning artist and curator based in Newcastle upon Tyne. He has curated over one hundred exhibitions, independently and with organisations such as NOPHOTO, The Royal Photographic Society and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research. Buttress is the curator and Artist Skills Development Coordinator for Brass Tacks, and his recent curated exhibitions include the Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021: Touring Exhibition (May 2022), Liz Atkin: Drawings, Collage and Writing – A Retrospective (June 2022) and SEEKING ARMAGEDDON by Peter Hanmer (October 2022).