Staircase Exhibition In Process –

Sally Minns studied at The Heatherley School of Fine Art, achieving a Diploma in Portraiture in 2021 and was awarded a scholarship by The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and completed a Post-Diploma in Figurative Painting in 2022.

Since graduating she has established a robust practice finding imagery through experimental and investigative processes. This exhibition focuses on the breadth of her process, showing evidence of her investigations and research, and demonstrates how she uses her body and materials to capture sensations and pursue areas of interest. “I am interested in what it is to be a body, so don’t want to think my way to representing those experiences and feelings onto the canvas. As a first step I need to feel the sensations which sometimes involves investigating an idea physically and capturing what comes up. I then let the arising images find their own form and determine the materials in which the work needs to be made.” This exhibition begins with Sally’s investigation into ‘Carrying All You Can Bear’, which included her dragging her charcoal covered body along paper before externalising the burdens she was carrying and dragging a bag of marble around with her during her daily life. This led to the realisation of the need to take up space to establish a sustainable creative practice. Investigations into space and boundaries followed and the shedding of socialised conventions and an ‘unbecoming’ occurred. These processes revolve around Sally’s interest in Body and Space, and her body became a site of knowledge production, both as it relates to objects and experiences externally and internally. With a return to the nurturing of her imagination, Sally’s explorations then moved to becoming, a place of transformation, which has led Sally back to the canvas. Experimentation with raw pigment and mark making on the surface is part of this cyclical investigative process and continues to feed Sally’s work as she resists the outcome until the very last moment. Her most recent paintings are on display at RuptureXIBIT, an experimental lab space in Kingston which she runs with other artists. They offer Art Practice mentoring, coaching, workshops, immersive residencies and experimental exhibitions, encouraging artists across all disciplines to take risks with their work.

Painters Hall
9 Little Trinity Lane
EC4V 2AD

By private view - assistantclerk@painters-hall.co.uk