NPA Lab | 2021
Into the Wreck
Esperanza Perkins
Esperanza Perkins was born in Spain and is now based in Surrey. She creates artwork using traditional crochet techniques alongside traditional drawing methods to explore memory and the various relationships within her family lineage, keeping a connection to her family and Spanish heritage.
Kirsten Beazley
Kirsten Beazley has a practice based in painting and drawing, taking much of her inspiration from media stories and images encountered on a daily basis. Interested in directing the viewers gaze back at images lost from public consciousness, Beazley’s practice embraces the banal and the absurd.
Annalisa Hayes
Annalisa Hayes is a painter and sculptor from South Wales, now based in London. With a practice that explores transgression and the human condition, Hayes’ work uses the abstracted human form as a vehicle for challenging predisposed ideas of normativity and aesthetics.
Perkins, Beazley, & Hayes
‘Into the Wreck’ (2021)
Charcoal, ink and pastel on paper
‘Into the Wreck’ was a collaboration between Kirsten Beazley, Esperanza Perkins and Annalisa Hayes—three multidisciplinary artists working across drawing, painting, crochet and sculpture, based in South West London. ‘Into the Wreck’ used Adrienne Rich’s poem, ‘Diving into the Wreck’, and its extended metaphor that compares a deep-sea dive to the struggle for women’s equality, as a starting point.
Perkins, Beazley, & Hayes
‘Into the Wreck’ (2021)
Mixed media on paper
In light of recent media coverage on women’s safety, sexual harassment and violence against women in the UK, ‘Diving into the Wreck’ felt especially pertinent. Each artist produced a drawing in response to the poem and passed it onto the next artist who modified, added and responded to the drawing as they wished.
Perkins, Beazley, & Hayes
‘Into the Wreck’ (2021)
Charcoal and graphite on paper
The outcome was three, rich, multilayered, thematically linked drawings that have served as starting points for further works and opened up new ways of thinking about collaborations and the various modes of artistic practice for each artist. The process of letting a work go, relinquishing any ownership over it and gifting it to another artist in order for it to be reimagined has been a completely new and particularly nurturing experience for each of the artists.