Hereford College of Arts   2008/2009

Ciara Lewis

For my AA2A residency in Hereford I wanted to explore mixing printing with my paintings to create new highly structured work. I had just started to visit Cardiff regularly and so I began a photography project with my partner Simon Boughton where he would collect images of urban regeneration from the city and I would then transfer the black and white images onto silk screens. Once printed onto canvases or paper, I would take them back to my studio to be worked up. It was interesting to begin with exactly the same image and then completely change the end results by how I painted it later. In January, we went to Morocco and so my inspiration took a change and the printed images began north African themes and so the close of AA2A show is the journey from Cardiff to Morocco in print and paint.

The AA2A residency has proved an invaluable tool in making my new work (which has so far been shown in London, Shropshire, Powys, Hereford and Worcester galleries and is now going to Bristol and Cardiff galleries... and selling well too!). I could not have made these paintings without access to the great HCA print facitilies, or without the free rein that was allowed me in the textiles room. I found the staff and tutors in the college really helpful, easy going and motivated which made my visits relaxed. Having an excellent library was a real treat too.

It's been interesting seeing the work of younger student artists too as working alone in the studio, I don't have much interaction with other artists. I enjoyed the atmosphere and it gave me a look at what being a tutor might be like too!

AA2A is a wonderful scheme, I only wish the access time could be spread out over a longer time, still offering the same contact hours, as I found I was very busy working to exhibition deadlines so I couldn't use all my allotted hours within the time scale. Thanks for the opportunity to develop my work in this new direction, I only wish I didn't have to wait three years to reapply!