After studying together at The Royal Drawing School in London in 2021, Tilson and Blease found common ground in their ideologies and processes. In 2022, they began teaching printmaking at The Summer Academy in Salzburg, now returning for their fourth year. From teaching their summer classes in the Hohensalzburg Fortress, to being artists in residence at the Grafische Werkstatt im Traklhaus, Salzburg has become a key site of production and creative exchange for them.
Tilson creates illusionary spaces built from pattern — layered, camouflaged, and constantly in motion. Pattern, for Tilson, is a language of energy and transformation. It can obscure, reveal, distract or dazzle. Figures emerge and disappear through a scintillating surface of painted marks, their forms enveloped in veils of translucent pigment. Distorted by folding fabrics, Tilson’s work explores the tension between visibility and concealment, surface and depth, control and chaos.
In Blease’s work similar tensions are realized albeit in different ways. Concerned with the subjective reality of living, Blease makes work about the urban landscape. First doing sketches in the streets, he then translates these notes into etchings and sculptures, attempting to harness and recreate the frenetic and anxious energy of contemporary metropolitan life. Through his totemic sculptures reminiscent of architectural models, and his loose, tactile etchings, Blease poses questions about modern living and the daily grind of work and leisure, business and pleasure, whilst casting a wary look at the persistent development and infinite ‘growth’ of the modern era.
key data
- Venue
- Galerie Kunst im Traklhaus
- Date
- 24. 7. 25, 7 p.m.
Hannah Tilson
Hannah Tilson (b. 1995) lives and works in London. She earned a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art (2018), completed the Royal Drawing School’s Drawing Year (2021), and attended the New York Studio School exchange. She was an artist-in-residence at Plop (2024) and Palazzo Monti (Sept 2022). Tilson participated in the Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon 2024 and published a monograph in 2023.
Tilson works in a variety of media: painting, mixing raw pigments and binder, drawing, printmaking and embroidering. Building up layers of translucent and opaque colours, concealing and revealing parts of the image, Tilson camouflages herself in vibrating and fragmented spaces filled with patterns. She views her body and the fabrics encompassing her as a landscape/pattern of rhythmic and geometric forms. The figure disappears and reappears, sometimes being completely swallowed up by the fabrics and other times; a hand or a shoe surfaces, taking the viewer closer to their own reality. The ambiguous shapes become a changeable part of this layered world, allowing the viewer to question what they see. In this fast-moving, turbulent space, abstracted through the pattern lens, something seems familiar, yet abstract…Everything is not as it seems.
Education / Teaching experience
2022 ‘Personal Patterns’ course at Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts
2021–present Tutor for the Young Artists program, Royal Drawing School, London
2019–21 Royal Drawing School, London, Postgraduate
2021 Drawing at home - pattern still life, Printmaking at home - tetra pak, online workshops for ‘Energy Systems’, Well Projects
2014–18 Slade School of Fine Art, London, Bachelor’s in Fine Art
2016 New York Studio School, New York, exchange program
2013–14 Central Saint Martins, London, Foundation Diploma
Website
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2021 Swoosh, Well Projects, Margate (UK). 2017 Tongue and Chic, Peckham Pelican, London. 2016 Hannah Tilson Final Exhibit, NYSS, New York, NY (US).
Group Exhibitions
2023 Phantom Brush, A plus A, Venice. Cure3,Bonhams, London. London Art Fair, Advanced Graphics stand, London. 2022 London Art Fair, Advanced Graphics booth, London. DREAM BABY DREAM, Paint talk at Fitzrovia gallery, London. 2021 Best of the Drawing Year, Christies, London. Small is Beautiful XXXIX, Flowers Gallery Cork Street, London. Salvaje Y Dulce, Badr El Jundi Gallery, Marbella (ES). Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize, Artsy. The Drawing Year End of Year Exhibition, Royal Drawing School, London. The Drawing Room, Berntson Bhattacharjee, London. Pacific Breeze II, White Conduit Projects, London. ArtUk Auction, Online. Original Paper Works, Online. 2020 Cure3, Bonhams, London. London Art Fair, Advanced Graphics both, London. 2019 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London. Guts Gallery Inaugural Exhibition, Guts Gallery, London. Voi rubate del tempo alla fretta a noi il mare ci impone lentezza, Castro Projects, Rome. 18/11/1, PMQ, Hong Kong. 2018 Paper Cuts, The Saatchi Gallery, London. The Lotus Eaters, Aindrea Contemporary, London. BA Degree Show, Slade School of Fine Art, London. Hot Milk, Post Institute, London. The Pink Panther Show, Gallery 46, London. 2017 From Cornucopia, Center for Recent Drawing, London. 2016 Art is the Highest Form of Hope, NYSS, New York. Topless Palaces, NYSS, New York. Legumes, 4 Malden Road, London.
Publications
Publications
Inside the Artist’s Studio, Art on a Postcard, 2022
Architectural Digest Spain, December, 2022
"5 Minutes with Hannah Tilson”, in: Elephant Magazine, Emily Steer, 25 Oct. 2021
“It’s a date: Hannah Tilson”, in: Contemporanea, Alberta Romano, Issue 04/05/06/ 2021
“The Art of Drawing featuring Hannah Tilson”, in: Berntson Bhattacharjee, January Spotlight, 2021
“Minnie Kemp asks: why do we collect things?”, in: Living etc. Magazine, Minnie Kemp, Issue 11/2020
“Isolation Interview with Hannah Tilson”, in: Seam Agency, 2 Sep. 2020
Otis Blease
Otis Blease (b.1996) studied Drawing and Printmaking at the University of West England, Bristol in 2018, where he was awarded the Dumfries House Residency on graduation. In 2019 he undertook a postgraduate scholarship course at The Royal Drawing School. Both drawing and printmaking continue to form the basis of much of his work, in addition to sculpture and painting. His work is often an amalgamation of these processes, taking inspiration in instances when these techniques converge.
His most recent body of work uses etching and sculpture to focus on urban spaces and humans’ interactions with them. From below ground in London’s underground transport system, to above ground amongst the new build developments and bustling street markets, Otis brings into question ideas of excess and sparsity of space and humans’ incessant lust for growth and land domination. At the heart of his work is always an observation and questioning of our current and ever-changing relationship to the world around us.
Exhibition highlights include ‘Voices in Drawing’ at Fenditton Gallery in Cambridge, ‘The Best of The Drawing Year’ at Christies, London and ‘The Factory Exhibition’ curated by Thorpe Stavri. He has undertaken artist residencies at Dumfries House in Scotland (2020), the Obracadobra programme in Oaxaca, Mexico (2019), and at Jamaica Street Studios, Bristol (2016).
Website
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
2024 Drakes x Wondering People Drakes Saville Row, London.
2021 Reveille, The Violet Hour, London. Factory Exhibition, Thorpe Stavri, London.
2021 Voices in Drawing, Fen Ditton Gallery, Cambridge (UK).
2021 Drawing Year 2019–20 End of Year Show, The Royal Drawing School, London.
2021 Open Studios, SPACE, London.
2021 Best of The Drawing Year 2019–20, Christies, London.
2020 Grays Wharf Summer Show: Tenants and friends of Grays Wharf, Grays Wharf, Penryn (UK). 2018 Con-form, Drawing and Printmaking BA Degree show, Arnolfini, Bristol (UK).
2017 Fortress, Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft, Bristol.
2016 In Residence, Jamaica Street Studios, Bristol.
Education / Teaching experience
2022/23/24 Printmaking Teacher at Salzburg Summer Academy
2023/ current Teacher on The Young Artists Programme, The Royal Drawing School
2021/ current Print-room and studio technician, The Royal Drawing School
