Artist statement
I graduated from Wimbledon Collage of Art in 2006 with a Masters Distinction degree and an Axis MAstar award. As well as an artist, I am a critical studies lecturer at Blackpool and the Fylde College, and I lead occasional educational and community art projects. I was selected for the Arts and Business ‘Vision’ for the North West, and created ‘The Liverpool Art Journal’.
Tracey Eastham uses collage and cut out techniques to assemble scenes of 'nature' that are, in fact, anything but what they first appear to be. Her depictions of nature, landscape and the rural are mediated through mass culture and art history, bringing together images appropriated from both classical and contemporary sources, and high and low culture. The resulting clash of styles, historical periods and skewed proportions between different elements within the one picture frame are simultaneously completely absurd and totally revealing of how we formulate our perceptions of the world through 'second hand' representations that are so common place that they have become part of our daily reality.
Eastham's assemblages present us with fictive landscapes, sometimes in formations akin to heraldic crests that serve to highlight the stylised reality of these depictions of nature. These works reflect the sentimentality for nature and the countryside that has existed for centuries, propagated through art and literature, and one that is at odds with the often harsh and brutal reality of rural life. Ridiculous and beguiling, they debunk the myth of the rural idyll and unpick and expose our pretension that we can ever really understand – or represent – the 'truth' of these subjects.
Paul Stone, 2008
Qualifications and training
- 2010 Arts Award Advisor, Arts Award, National
- 2010 Certificate to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (CTLLS) Teaching Qualification, Lancashire Adult Learning, Chorley
Employment
- 2012 Critical Studies Lecturer, Blackpool and Fylde College - affiliated to Lancaster University, Blackpool
Solo exhibitions
- 2012 This Idea of a Lost England, Airspace Gallery, Stoke on Trent
- 2010 Tracey Eastham, Cornerhouse Gallery: Projects, Manchester
- 2009 Soul Satisfied, The Vault Gallery, Lancaster
Group exhibitions
- 2012 Fundraising Auction, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
- 2011 AirVent, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke on Trent
- 2011 The Manchester Contemporary, Mermaid and Monster, Manchester
- 2011 Pulp Fictions, Transition Gallery, London
- 2011 Endlos umstritten, ewig schön: Interrogating Beauty, D21 Gallery, Leipzig, Germany
- 2011 We Are All In This Together, Bureau Gallery, Manchester
- 2010 Exeter Contemporary Open 2010, Exeter Phoenix Gallery, Exeter
- 2010 They Do Things Differently There, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
- 2010 Cure Leukaemia Art Auction, Wraggle & Co, Birmingham
- 2010 Stories, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton
- 2010 Haiti Art Auction, CUBE Gallery, Manchester
- 2010 POST, Trove, Birmingham
- 2009 Collaged: Tracey Eastham with Louise Bristow, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire
- 2009 The Manchester Contemporary, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
- 2009 Coller-Elective, Arena Gallery, Liverpool
- 2009 SLICK Dessin, Cynthia Corbett Gallery, Paris
- 2009 AAF, Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London
- 2008 Interchange, CCP Car Park, Liverpool
- 2008 Artists Book Fair, Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool
- 2008 Future50, PSL Leeds, Leeds
- 2008 Not For Your Eyes, Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool
- 2007 Cut and Colour, Blyth Gallery, Imperial Collage, London
- 2006 AntiFreeze, Cynthia Corbett Gallery, Stockwell Studios
- 2006 MA Show, Wimbledon College of Art
- 2006 Centre for Drawing Project, Wimbledon Collage of Art
- 2006 BASE, Trinity Buoy Wharf
- 2005 Emerging Artists, Warsaw Project Space, Ancoats, Manchester
- 2005 BA Show, Loughborough University
Curated projects
- 2009 Slide Slam, A Foundation, Liverpool
Live/Performance
- 2011 Live Collages, Bruntwood Arts and Business Awards Ceremony, Manchester
Artist talks
- 2010 Art Course, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool
- 2010 Tracey Eastham, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
Workshops
- 2010 Keys 4...? (Artist workshop for people with learning difficulties and disabilities), Moving On With Life and Learning, Liverpool
- 2009 Dare to Design Artist Workshops with low secure unit, NHS Guild Lodge, Preston
- 2009 Fifth Floor, Tate Gallery, Liverpool
Residencies
- 2011 Bradley Fold Allotment Residency, Allotment Diaries & Environmental Hubs by Elizabeth Wewiora, Didsbury, Manchester
- 2011 Collaborative Residency with Anna Francis, The Burlington Arts Club, Manchester
- 2009 AA2A Scheme Artists Residency, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
Projects
- 2011 Creative Collage in response to Blackpool Archive Material, Arts and Health, Blackpool
Educational experience - special needs
- 2009 Social Identity Project with Service Users and Community Groups, Moving On With Life and Learning (MOWLL), University of Liverpool
- 2009 NHS Reintergration Project - workshops and permanent art made with service users, Guild Lodge Low Secure Unit, Lancashire
Publications
- 2009 Apocalypse - The Liverpool Art Journal special edition
- 2009 Artists Book Fair - The Liverpool Art Journal special edition
Web links - gallery/work/projects
Personal website
