The board of trustees meets five times a year and is the main policy-making body of Axis, having the power to make strategic decisions relating to the organisation in the same way as a board of directors of a commercial company (but with the additional responsibilities of charity trustees).
Susan J Royce (Chair)
Susan is a chartered accountant and change management consultant who works exclusively with arts and cultural organisations. Following a career in the City with PricewaterhouseCoopers, she established her own consulting practice in which she took the opportunity to bring together her professional expertise and a long-standing passion for the arts. She is particularly interested in how change happens within mission led organisations. She is the Treasurer of the Egypt Exploration Society and the Chair of Axis.
Katayoun Pasban Dowlatshahi (Vice Chair)
Born in 1967 and brought up in Iran, Katayoun Dowlatshahi undertook her formal education and training in Fine Art in England, Scotland and Spain. She has been working as a professional practising artist and lecturer; undertaking solo and group exhibitions, public art commissions and art residencies both in the UK and aboard. She was Durham Cathedral Artist in Residence in 1998-99. She has just completed a full time PhD in Drawing with Light: The Pencil of Nature at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham.
From 1997 to 2002 Dowlatshahi was a council member of the Society of Scottish Artists and appointed President between 2000 and 2002. The Society of Scottish Artists is an artist led organisation representing 600 contemporary artists of national and international standing.
Katayoun is also an artist on Axis.
See Katayoun on Axis.
Mary Heycock
Mary Heycock has been a senior manager in higher education for 13 years and has recently retired from the post of Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Society at Leeds Metropolitan University. The Faculty is a lead faculty in the arts, design, media, humanities, social sciences and environment and works collaboratively with others to develop its strengths regionally and nationally. Mary is a sociologist by training and her research interests are in social and public policy. She has a particular interest in quality systems and teaching and learning and has had experience of a wide range of subject disciplines and professionally accredited curricula. In her various senior management roles she led the development of performance and performing arts within the University.
Celia E Moss (Treasurer)
Celia is physics graduate of Bristol University and has an MBA from INSEAD in France. She works as an independent consultant at the business process/IT interface.
Her early career was in the electron probe division of Cambridge Scientific Instruments where she worked in application development and export sales. She then spent nine years as a consultant with McKinsey & Co Inc, working for public and private sector organisations in many countries. Subsequently she was the corporate technology development and operations director for a multinational consulting firm. For the last eight years she has had her own consulting company.
Richard Barlow
Mr Barlow is a barrister whose practice relates exclusively to value added tax and other customs matters and he has an interest in internet law. His interest in the visual arts is non-professional and his particular interests are painting and furniture design. He has been a trustee of a local charity for some years and has management experience, including financial management, from an earlier career in the civil service. He lives in rural Yorkshire and works from home as much as possible but his work takes him to all parts of the UK.
Diane Howse
Diane Howse is an artist and curator. She studied fine art at Exeter College of Art and Design. After college she was actively involved with a number of artists groups and venues based in the South West including Spacex, Exeter and Watershed, Bristol.
Currently Diane is a Trustee and Chair of the Programming Policy Board at Harewood House, Leeds. Since the 1980s Diane has played an intrinsic role in developing a contemporary art programme at Harewood House. The Terrace Gallery opened in 1989, providing a designated space for contemporary art, where Diane continues to curate and co-curate a number of significant exhibitions.
Diane has continued to practice as an artist primarily working in film. She has collaborated on projects with architect Seth Stein and since the mid-1990s with poet and curator Thomas A. Clark.
Alessandro Vincentelli
Alessandro Vincentelli is currently curator at BALTIC, Gateshead, he joined the programme team 12 months ago and has worked on the realisation and presentation of the Ed & Nancy Kienholz exhibition at BALTIC and its tour to the MCA, Sydney, Australia. He initiated the exhibition of New York painter Barnaby Furnas and developed the Bob & Roberta Smith exhibition also at BALTIC. In 2006 he is working to develop exhibitions at BALTIC with the painter James Hugonin and the artist and photographer, Sam Taylor-Wood.
He previously worked as curator at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (1997-2000) where he organised exhibitions and projects with Nancy Spero, Yinka Shonibare, Beat Streuli, Dryden Goodwin and Mariele Neudecker.
In the North East he has also worked in two other roles including developing a photography initiative and publishing enterprise; photoNORTH. This was supported by a talks programme and the publishing of books with Julian Germain and Uta Kogelsberger amongst others. He worked as Visual Arts Officer for Arts Council, North East between 2000-2002 where he was responsible for New Media, Photography and Live Art. One of his first jobs was as Visual Arts Projects Officer in Northumberland during Visual Arts Year 1996 and was involved in the setting up the Kielder Art and Architecture programme and developing and presenting exhibitions at the Queens Hall Art Centre, Gallery, Hexham.
He trained at the Royal College of Art, London on the MA Visual Arts Administration; Contemporary Curating Course, 1992-1994. Alessandro Vincentelli is also currently working as an advisor for the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester.
See Alessandro on Axis
