Elise Menghini

Our Artist in Residence

Elise Menghini is Bath Artists' Studios Artist in Residence. To help nurture new artistic talent in Bath and to add some fresh thinking to our community, we have offered a 6 month residency to a Bath Spa graduate. Elise makes playful and intriguing ceramic objects that capture the idea and sense of place. She is informed by everyday visual elements that are familiar but ignored, while inspiration comes from holiday signifiers and mementos.

''For this residency, I really wanted to take full advantage of the studio space I had been given to realise a larger piece of work, taking Bath, its history and architecture, as a focus for the central theme. The artist residency has given me the chance to stop and reflect on where I live, whilst continuing my fascination with a sense of place, which inspired my ceramics degree show in 2013. 

By visiting all the city landmarks I had not explored before, such as No 1 Royal Crescent, I became engrossed in the interior splendour and hidden stories behind the buildings that surround me. I started to see them more with a visitor’s eye than that of a busy resident."

Elise's residency concludes with an exhibition of work in our Gallery. 
Click on the image below to view full size

'I Heart Bath'

"For this exhibition, I have made a series of interior objects that have been inspired by Bath, as an historical and popular tourist city.  Through my research, I have unearthed many hidden and fascinating facts.  From the Wedgwood showroom once housed on Milsom Street to the oyster shells found in the restoration of No 1 Royal Crescent, I became intrigued to rediscover these forgotten stories. These references are synthesised in the mixed media pieces, which aim to offer a contemporary view of Bath's visually rich and cultural landscape."

For more information about Elise's Exhibition and forthcoming Gallery events visit our website.

www.elisemenghini.co.uk

Practice Development Group for Professional Artists

The BAS Practice Development Group meets each Wednesday. We have varying disciplines, interests and professional practices.

Wednesdays; 8 Jan - 2 Apr; 10am - 12pm; Half term 19 Feb; 12 weeks 

£60 or £5 per session inc basic materials

Tutors Gillian McFarland and Mary Caron-Courtney

This is a peer-review art group for artists wishing to develop their working practices.

This group offers the opportunity for exchange and sharing of ideas with other artists, whilst exploring your own creative working. 

Bring your preferred materials along for exchange and discussion. 

We share a common creative focus and the 

session enables us to exchange ideas and have a regular space to play with ideas. 

The sessions vary: some weeks we work purely with the materials available, other times we may have a specific focus depending on ideas raised by participants.

Meet our New Artist

Anthony Stapleton

I recently qualified as an art therapist, accredited by the Health and Care Professions Council. As well as continuing my own art practice I intend to base my art therapy practice in the studio.

I moved, with my wife Fabiola, from London to Bath at the beginning of November. She will also be in the studio, sometimes, to do her own art-making.

To make the space workable needs thoughtful attention; it has to suit the privacy needed for art therapy; and I need the concentration of time for my own art-making.

I have felt welcomed by everyone I've met. My sense is that there's a community of artists here working individually, whilst making an interactive hub where ideas can be reflected on.





Over time, as I settle in I hope to participate more in this creative community.

These line drawings show something of my work. My image-making process can be described as: scribbling; from an embryonic processing of marks – mostly on paper – an image forms. This image – so it seems – has been lurking in some known, and unknown, part of me.

When I am at work I let go of my arm so as to let the materials flow. Yet, in my mind, I am a part of the form which begins to show itself. Through the medium of the materials – with my hand, eyes, and thoughts guiding – it finds its way out into a visual presence –
reflecting back something of me and something of the culture I inhabit.

Often the content of the work I do surprises me. The images can sometimes feel too raw.


With time and distance I tend to see them with a more objective eye, and begin to find a narrative in them.