Creative Champion Highlight – Jess Aughton
Continuing with supporting young creatives, one recipient of our micro-commissions, Jess Aughton, has also been appointed as Art Production Intern at Craven Arts. This is an exciting new position from one of our ‘Nurturing Creativity’ project partners. Funded by ourselves, Jess will support the development of the Watch This Space project, a collaboration between GPLD and Heritage Action Zone. She will also manage the Craven Arts social media pages, produce newsletters and support the organisation’s events.
Jess is a black line illustrator, who uses fine liners to create her illustrations. She has recently delved into the world of digital art, using Procreate to produce her work. Her inspiration comes from the people that she has met over the years while travelling.
Instead of following the mainstream education route, Jess spent some time hitching around protest sites and communities across the UK, living in various dwellings such as vans, benders, buses, treehouses, and caravans. While in these spaces she was away from the confines of technology and used her days creatively: cooking, drawing, and gardening. The people she met over those years have all inspired her illustrations in one way or another: be it the characters themselves or the ability to draw organically.
Her micro-commission piece is a comic strip panel that explores her own personal relationship with her local area: The Lake District. It also looks at how this landscape has affected her sense of self and mental health.
The two main characters: Ebb and Flo will represent a journey of self-reflection and opposing trains of thought: Ebb/negative/anxiety. Flo/curiosity/joy. These characters will explore places of significance to Jess’s sense of identity around the Lake District.
We wish her every success in her new position and can’t wait to see her micro-commission piece in the final exhibition at Brewery Arts this summer. Check it out along with the other micro-commissions between the 14th July and the 3rd September.
