Kelly Jenkins Artist in Residence

About

Bankside Hotel x Contemporary Collective are thrilled to welcome contemporary painter and textile artist Kelly Jenkins to the Makers’ Studio as their next Artist in Residence. During her 4 week residency, Kelly will create a range of free-hand machine embroidered paintings inspired by data collected from the environment around the Bankside on the Thames, the people that inhabit the area, and a few famous individuals who have fueled her previous body of work created through the duration of the pandemic.

Whilst in the studio, Kelly’s aim is to push her embroidery skills, techies and ideas even further, through design development, scale and incorporating new digital embroidery aesthetics and terminology. Producing a range of plein air sketches of the surrounding area on the Southbank, Kelly aims to develop these sketches into embroidered paintings, as well as create 2 free-hand machine embroidered data portraits, employing the personal data usage to translate and create an interpretation of their online existing. Additionally, Kelly plans to develop and scale up 3 plein air paintings onto canvas and use online data to create 3 free-hand machine embroidered datascapes.

We are thrilled to announce that Kelly will be sponsored by the No.1 sewing machine manufacturer in the world, JANOME UK. Through this partnership, JANOME will be lending Kelly the MC550E and CM7P sewing machines for the residency, allowing her to create a series of digital datascapes visualisations based on daily data. These works will be embroidered directly into mini plein air paintings and will reflect data collected around the Southbank area. These pieces will be created alongside Kelly’s free hand embroidery pieces and will be made as limited-edition digital embroideries.

For the duration of her residency, Kelly will take over the Contemporary Collective Instagram account to document her experience in the studio space. This takeover will feature process shots and final artworks to provide insight into the artist’s creative process, as well as weekly summaries including video clips of various activities taking place in the residency space and the development of ongoing work. Kelly will also host a workshop, diving deeper into her practice and sharing insight with hotel guests and the wider community.