Introducing this year’s BCN Artists in Residence

Multistory is delighted to announce the five artists selected for the Blast Creative Network (BCN) Residency Programme for 2024/25. They are: Chantal Pitts, Courtenay Welcome, Daya Bhatti, Molly Thompson and Satinder Parhar. A special thanks to Alex Billingham (previously a BCN Artist in Residence) who joined us as a guest panellist to help select this year’s artists.

The BCN Residency Programme is funded by Multistory and we work in partnership with the Wolverhampton School of Art (WSoA). Each year, the programme provides five artists based in Sandwell and the wider Black Country support, advice, guidance and resources for development, research, testing out ideas and making new work. Each artist’s residency is for three weeks.

Residencies are taking place at WSoA between October 2024 and March 2025. The programme will culminate in a group exhibition at WSoA that opens on Thursday 1 May 2025, with an exhibition preview held that evening, and runs until Friday 16 May 2025. There will be an evening of talks by the artists on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Chantal Pitts
In residence: October 2024

For Chantal’s BCN residency she will be experimenting with printing onto wood, metalworking, sculpture and assemblage. She will continue to combine and develop her furniture making skills with her art making practice to tell stories. Chantal is interested in exploring the subconscious and hypnotherapy as part of her process, to connect self-awareness, thought, emotion and memory to visuals, texture, shape, form and colour to bring a deep connection and richer reading to the work.

Chantal is an interdisciplinary artist with a Fine Art undergraduate degree, a City and Guilds distinction in Furniture Design and Production, and an Art and Design Interdisciplinary Practices MA. Chantal’s practice encompasses furniture as a medium, installation, assemblage and sculpture with self-hypnosis as part of my developmental practice. Her work is self-reflective, exploring and expressing the intangible self that is beyond race and gender. Chantal’s solo show at Stryx JQ attracted the attention of the Royal College of Art, for whom she gave a series of talks on her practice.

Chantal has exhibited at: the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; The Photographer’s Gallery, Soho, London; The Asylum Gallery, Wolverhampton; Stryx Gallery, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham; Eastside Projects, Birmingham; and The Wolverhampton School of Art.

She is a member and co-founder of the AMASS artist collective.

Courtenay Welcome

In residence: November 2024

For Courtenay’s BCN residency they will be developing two pieces of artwork to explore ideas surrounding: fragments of radical thought, new wave Black conceptualism, freedom dreams, imprisonment relating to the human condition, surrealism and contemporary culture, collective understanding of how internal worlds, and how isolation and loneliness show up in the body. They also intend to use the residency to explore the unknown, critically analysing and playfully exploring the immediate landscape of Wolverhampton.

Artist bio: Courtenay is a multi-disciplinary artist, using elements of painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and installation in their work. Courtney’s work aims to expand our understanding of sculpture and painting, with a special interest in the ways that these mediums can become one; and exploring the rich complexities of race, memory, space and time. Held by a critical infrastructure that examines pre-existing texts, these texts illustrate dreams, love, race relations and revolutionary thought. Courtenay documents transitions from one embodiment to another, while critically addressing the ways in which these transitions are perceived by institutional means. Often these documentations are bodies of material culture captured though photography – speaking specifically to identity construction and lifestyle; disrupting pre-existing ways of looking and thinking about images and objects in space. Experimental mark makings in relationship to the body and its emotions, these explorations are often in critical dialogue with a history of refusal. Current interests of the artist include: Black Conceptualism, Freedom Dreams, Water, Care, the role of the artist's hands and experimental mark making.

Daya Bhatti

In residence: January 2025

For Daya’s BCN residency she will explore the themes of home, heritage, futurism and time. Daya is drawn to the sari's deep connection to the cultural traditions of South Asia, as well as its ability to transcend borders and travel across different regions. She is interested in researching the origins of the sari, tracing its roots and journey across the world, including how it shapes British society and its significance to British Asian identity.

Artist bio: Daya Illustrations is a visual artist based in the West Midlands. Daya visually communicates the significance of traditions, histories and the hybrid British Asian identity. She brings to life the stories and experiences that have shaped her own identity, but also illustrates stories from diverse South Asian communities. Her versatile portfolio encompasses a wide array of artistic mediums from portraiture, fashion illustrations and animations to painting, textiles and the use of recycled materials. Daya blurs the lines between fashion and art, often using clothing as a vehicle for storytelling by creating wearable pieces of art.

Across these various forms of expression, the common thread that runs through her work is storytelling with the aim of shedding light on narratives that are often underrepresented. Her visual expression bridges the past and present whilst creating dialogue between cultures. Her art not only expresses her connection with culture but also the value to generations before and alongside her.

Daya has exhibited in various galleries across the UK alongside facilitating creative workshops and taking on commissions from clients such as Manchester Museum and Preston Park and Museum.

Molly Thompson

In residence: February 2025

For Molly’s BCN residency she will be developing her research on freezing objects and their performative nature. Molly will be focusing on the local history of the Big Freeze and how that glacier is now a part of Cannock Park. Molly will also continue developing her long-term artwork, Liquid Gold. During her residency she hopes to work with local people to capture sounds and videos of the local area, to become part of the videos used in this artwork.

Artist bio: Molly Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist, using elements of sculpture, installation, sound and video in her practice. Molly’s work explores the act of preservation as a tool for recalling lived narratives, connecting sound, film, and sculptures. By creating ambiguous narratives around personal experiences, she observes the synchronicities with memories being fiction and/or phantoms. She is drawn to the past as an uncanny feeling, relying on found materials as a pillar for storytelling.

Satinder Parhar

In residence: March 2025

For Satinder’s BCN residency he is going to use Wolverhampton School of Art’s printmaking room and etching presses to print large scale prints and A4 sized prints as part of his research and development. He is interested in using the canal waterways, tunnels and viaducts in and around Wolverhampton to further his experimentation and research surrounding empty spaces in the region. Satinder’s current work delves into the concept of the empty space, its relationship with the viewer and the form that shapes it.

Artist bio: Satinder has long produced large scale dry-point prints which explore the concept of interstitial spaces*. Fascinated by natural and man-made apertures, he explores empty spaces such as tunnels, vents, caves, fissures etc. These forms create an intervening space called an ‘interstice.’ It examines the structures, the interstitial spaces formed within and its relationship with the ‘object’. Do they supplement or oppose each other? The use of black and white emphasises the disparity and the unity between the interstice and interstitial space. The two colours oppose each other, yet work together. The viewer is immersed within this re-representational space through the size of the prints. Both exist in the realm of one another. One cannot exist without the other. The ‘object’ is a mere footnote in the wider spectrum.

*An interstitial space is a term often used in architecture to describe spaces located between regular-use rooms or spaces.