Stephen Bird (aka Jowe Head) is an artist and performer from the Midlands of England, now living in east London. His first visual art influences were ancient Egyptian paintings, Mayan statues, Surrealism and Dada. After studying Fine Art at Manchester, he’s shown his work in many solo and group exhibitions in London, Europe and USA.
As well as painting, Jowe’s other media are drawing and print-making, and has painted murals, made films, and he also makes collages, sculptures and clocks using recycled junk.
Being a musician and record producer, he also designs his own record covers. While an art student, his first band – pioneering DIY punks Swell Maps. When they broke up, Jowe joined the Television Personalities, making more influential records, touring Europe, Japan and the USA.
He graduated from art college as a painter and also had some experience in sculpture, so he brought that experience to making props, costumes and sets for a series of films that he started to make. He was influenced by the films of Jan Svankmajer, the Czech film-maker and animator. Svankmajer’s unique vision and surreal masterpieces inspired him to make some interesting films himself, without a huge budget, just with an affordable video camera, and an imaginative approach, using his own hand-made props and set designs.
Catherine Gerbrands is a London-based artist and musician, originally from Far North Queensland. She uses a diverse range of media to look deep into the souls and past lives of her natural subjects, allowing the natural forms to evolve into surreal patterns and often dark absurdist creatures. Catherine also sings and plays musical saw and has recorded and performed with artists such as the Mediaeval Baebes, KatieJane Garside and Jowe Head (TV Personalities, Swell Maps). She currently performs with folk outfit 7-Headed Raven and Jowe Head’s Infernal Contraption.
Jo Fisher Roberts enjoys trying to create beauty out of what has been thrown away, she sees this as a kind of magic. Her work is created from reused, recycled and hand made paper. She has always loved painting nature, particularly oddities in nature, mutation, deformity, peculiarity both actual and imaginary. Her later work plays around with this, emphasising and adding to, as well as using her personal tendency to hallucinate for inspiration. Her first exhibition was at sixteen in the Old House at Halls Place in Bexley. She then trained at The Slade School of Fine Art where she achieved a Masters of Fine Art and has had residencies in Berlin, Rome and Cornwall (living alone in a shed in the middle of a forest for a month). She has had solo shows at the ICA, the Bookartbookshop and Le Salon des Arts, Kennsington, amongst others. She works as a freelance artist and illustrator as well as teaching, and making animations.
Hélène Williams creates significant forms that investigate the connection between mind and art, thus embracing her experience as a psychotherapist and an artist.
Sonia McNally has had an interest in fortune telling and cartomancy from a young age, with a particular interest in the Tarot and the mysteries it holds.
She works with the major acarna as gateways to the places that are inhabited by the characters that reside there.
