This year we have launched a new open call residency programme within the print studio. Artists are selected from a national open call out and once selected are invited to experiment within the print studio for a six week period culminating in an exhibition of their work of produced and already existed artworks. Each residency coincides with the exhibition in the main gallery space and our current artist in residence Bethan Hamilton has been working alongside The Negligent Eye. Using found imagery from websites Bethan describes her work as an -

“Exploration of the female form, sexuality and identity through mark making, with a strong focus on body fat and obesity. I am currently working on an ongoing series of portrait drawings using found imagery of women consuming a variety of foods. Contrived, sleazy publicity shots of actresses eating ice cream juxtaposed with animalistic snapshots of competitive binge eaters. Through this body of work I am looking to further examine the contradictory attitudes towards the female form and the exploitation of men and women’s physical desires within the media and popular culture. During my six week print residency with The Bluecoat I sought to merge these two projects, to produce a new body of work. I used this opportunity to learn and experiment with a new printmaking process, photo-etching (photopolymer) to create photorealistic etching prints taking further inspiration from found imagery, the majority of which were sourced from an online fat positive ‘Feeder’ network. “

Bethan Hamilton completed her Masters at the University of the Arts London, in 2009. In 2011 she had a solo exhibition at the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton. She has been in a number of exhibitions across the UK, and was selected for the Neo:Artists prize in 2012. She recently exhibited at Paper Gallery Manchester where she is currently based.

"My current practice is an exploration of the female form, sexuality and identity through mark making - with a strong focus on body fat and obesity.

Throughout my first AA2A artists residency with Manchester Metropolitan University in 2011 I began working on the Feeder print series. I created images of ambiguous forms, indeterminate in sex, species or context, originally derived from sections of the obese female form. I visualized a selection of these 2D forms as tangible 3D sculptural objects through a series of individual frames viewed within a 360° rotation, using a traditional etching process.

I am currently working on an ongoing series of portrait drawings using found imagery of women consuming a variety of foods. Contrived, sleazy publicity shots of actresses eating ice cream juxtaposed with animalistic snapshots of competitive binge eaters. Through this body of work I am looking to further examine the contradictory attitudes towards the female form and the exploitation of men and women’s physical desires within the media and popular culture.

During my six week print residency with The Bluecoat I sought to merge these two projects, to produce a new body of work. I used this opportunity to learn and experiment with a new printmaking process, photo-etching (photopolymer) to create photorealistic etching prints taking further inspiration from found imagery, the majority of which were sourced from an online fat positive ‘Feeder’ network.

Having previously used images of female competitive eaters, I wanted to continue to explore the motivations behind binge eating. ‘Feedees’ or ‘Gainers’ are people (often women) who are in ‘Feeder’ relationships, who are fed by their partners with the deliberate intent to gain weight. For some ‘Gainer’ women the pleasure of eating and the sensation of bloating/fullness after consuming excessive amounts of food is arousing and for members of this online community the obese female body is beautiful and sexually attractive. " Bethan Hamilton