Join us for Open Studios on the 11 - 14 September
Join us this September as we open the doors to Patrick Studios and Convention House for our Open Studios – a rare chance to step inside working studios, meet the artists, and explore the creative heart of our city.
From Thursday 11 to Saturday 14 September, you’ll be able to visit artists in their spaces, find out more about their work, and get an insight into their creative processes. You’ll also be able to take part in creative workshops and activities led by studio holders and guest artists.
Artists based at Patrick Studios and Convention House will be opening their studio doors throughout the event. From established names to early-career artists, the line-up reflects the breadth and energy of Leeds’ creative scene.
Our Open Studios weekend is part of the city-wide Leeds Open Studios, where artists across Leeds invite you to explore their workspaces. You can find out who’s taking part at leedsopenstudios.com.
Plan your visit
🗓 Dates: 11–14 September
Thursday 11: 6 – 9 pm (Seki Lynch performance at 7pm)
Friday 12: 3 – 7 pm
Saturday 13: 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 14: 1 – 5 pm
📍 Locations: Patrick Studios and Convention House, Leeds
🎟 Free entry for most acitivites, but tickets may be required for some workshops.
This event is made possible thanks to the generous support of Leeds City Council, UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and Arts Council England.
We can’t wait to see you.
Activities over the weekend:
Seki Lynch: Under the Sun Our Hearts Are Beating
Patrick Studios, Project Space | Thursday 11 September 7pm
Seki Lynch returns with an enchanting evening of poetry and jazz for anyone who has ever felt like dancing in the face of their fears. Developed whilst in residency at East Street Arts the performance is named after Seki’s debut collection, ‘Under The Sun Our Hearts Are Beating’. Delve into themes of love, connection, and consciousness through mesmerizing performances by Leeds poet Seki Lynch, accompanied by the soulful jazz sounds of Ozzy Moysey, Hugh Vincent, and Mick Bardon from the Ancient Infinity Orchestra.
Two Colour Riso Workshop
Convention House | Saturday 13 September 1pm & 4pm
Join artist Georgia Green for a hands-on introduction to Riso printing. In this two-hour workshop, you’ll learn how to create vibrant, layered images using two colours on our risograph printers in Convention House.
There will be two workshops, running from 1-3 pm and then 4-6 pm.
Book your place on two colour riso printing
Drop in letterpress and screen printing
Leeds Print Workshop | Saturday 13 September 10 am until 4 pm
Explore the Leeds Print Workshop space, chat to their print technicians about courses and membership, and even have a go at some traditional printmaking activities using letterpress and screen printing. Drop in, no booking required. Family-friendly, all welcome.
Woodcut Relief Printing Bookable Workshop
Leeds Print Workshop | 10:30 am until 4 pm
Spend a day learning how to use specialist woodcutting tools to carve your own design into high-quality plywood to print from. You’ll learn how to use oil-based inks and use Leeds Print Workshop’s traditional relief printing presses, as well as other printing methods, including hand burnishing. This is a great introduction to woodcut techniques.
Book your place on Woodcut Relief Printing
Dr Frances-Ann Norton: Icon Painting Workshop
Mezzanine, Patrick Studios | Sunday 1 until 5pm
Work with icon writer Dr Frances-Ann Norton to create your own A5 religious icon painting. Guided through traditional Byzantine methods and symbology, you’ll learn the techniques step by step on a blank board or a pre-outlined design. Materials for the workshop will be provided, and you will get to take your painting home with you. This is drop-in, throughout the afternoon, but limited to four participants at a time.
Gabriella Ranito-Baltazar: Live Painting
Project Space, Patrick Studios | Saturday & Sunday 12 until 3pm
Gabriella will be working on her abstract paintings in the Project Space on the Saturday and Sunday of Open Studios. This will be a unique opportunity to see the techniques and methods used to create large-scale paintings as they develop.
TEST MODE: a risograph exhibition
Patrick Studios, Project Space | Thursday 11 – Sunday 14 September
TEST MODE brings together fifteen artists following their recent risograph residencies at Convention House, where they used the print room to develop new work and explore their creative processes. Each artist approaches image-making differently, embracing the distinctive qualities of risograph printing.
Annabel McCourt: I’m Sorry
Convention House, Ground Floor | Open over the weekend
We’re excited to be introducing Annabel McCourt’s I’m Sorry to Convention House for a six-week exhibition. It will be open from 4 September until 16 October, with a public opening (accompanying the start of Open Studios) on 11 September.
Artists taking part:
Rhian Cooke | B3A
Rhian Cooke is an artist based in Leeds, making work across sculpture, moving image, and animation, exploring the linkages and crossings between nature and environment; shifting between imagination and reality. She takes inspiration from autobiographical objects, cycling, wildlife, traffic and nature, allowing them to perform together to tell ongoing stories with the environments I create.
Find Rhian:
@rhiancooke | curatorspace.com/artists/rhiancooke
Leeds Print Workshop | B
Leeds Print Workshop is a co-operative membership-based printmaking studio at Patrick Studios in central Leeds. They provide facilities for a wide range of traditional printmaking processes and aim to develop a supportive community of artists and printmakers. As well as providing facilities for members, they also teach a wide range of creative workshops and courses in different printmaking processes, which are available to members of the public and various community groups.
Find Leeds Print Workshop:
@leedsprintworkshop | leedsprintworkshop.org
Julia McKinlay | B5
Julia McKinlay is an artist, curator and researcher, specialising in sculpture, drawing and print. Her work incorporates material processes that mimic nature, using chemical reactions, heat, and pressure to make installations that represent semi-fictional environments and question the boundaries between nature and the human-made. Previous works have represented the surface of a snail’s shell, an obscure garden and the edge of the world. Julia is a Lecturer in Fine Art at University of Leeds and curator of Threshold, an outdoor gallery space for sculpture in LS4, Leeds.
Find Julia:
@julia_mckinlay | juliamckinlay.com | thresholdsculpture.space
James Thompson | B3B
My work explores the perception of space and its interpretation. Working across sculpture, moving image, and site-responsive performance, I use existing spatial situations as a starting point, which are recorded and reinterpreted to construct new, multidimensional experiences of reality.
Find James:
@j_ames__thompson | jamesthompson.info
*images © Jules Lister
Griet Beyaert | B6
Griet is interested in the sensory internal experience of the spaces we inhabit. Her practice encompasses the use of multiple technologies such as audio-visual techniques, glassmaking and coding. While she uses a variety of pieces of software, she often works in Troikatronix: Isadora routed to Ableton Live.
Find Griet:
@griet1111 | dodellis.com
Alex De Little | E1
Alex De Little is a sonic artist and researcher with bases in Leeds and London, UK. His practice encompasses installation, composition, performance and workshops; it is concerned with the interrogation of listening as a practice of world-making – a way of thinking into and through environments, notions of self, and social relations.
Find Alex:
@alex_delittle | alexdelittle.com
Rose George | E3
Rose George first began writing as an intern at The Nation in New York. Later, I became senior editor and writer at COLORS, based first in Rome, then Paris, then Venice. In 1999, began a freelance career, and have since written for the New York Times, Guardian, Independent, London Review of Books and many other publications. She was accidentally a war correspondent in Kosovo for Condé Nast Traveler (for one day); reported on an alternative World Cup final in Bhutan between Bhutan and Montserrat (Bhutan won); and attended Saddam Hussein’s birthday party, twice. (There was cake.)
Find Rose:
rosegeorge.com
Tessa Houghton | E5A
Tessa Houghton is a British contemporary painter whose work is infused with light and texture. Inspired by nature, she explores contrasting themes of fragility and strength, transience and endurance, death and renewal.
Find Tessa:
@tessa.houghton | tessahoughton.com
Ben Winter | E5B
Ben Winter is a UK artist based in Leeds and has taken part in open call exhibitions across the UK (Art of music, King street gallery, Lancaster winner of special selection). In 2023 he had a solo exhibition at the ORBS walls, Leeds.
Using found images, photographs and memory he is interested in themes of ritual activity, displacement and otherness.
Mystery and mythology are key to the conceptualisation of his work, the storytelling and communality that is present in group activity, contrasted with individualism and self-motivated productivity is something he is currently exploring in his practice.
Find Ben:
Andi Walker | E4
Andi Walker is a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds, specialising in Constructed Textiles. With an MA in Constructed Textiles from the Royal College of Art, Andi has developed a rich and diverse practice that encompasses a deep exploration of materials, ink, and cloth. Their work is characterised by an engagement with materials, using these to create dynamic pieces that challenge and expand traditional boundaries of textile art. At the core of Andi’s practice is a commitment to storytelling and the exploration of identity, history, and societal inequalities.
Find Andi:
@andiwalker1965 | andiwalker.co.uk
Valerie Zwart | F5
Valerie Zwart studied at the University of Toronto, followed by the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her work has been shown internationally and is in private and corporate collections. Zwart came to art after a brief career in environmental consulting. Her background, as well as her several international moves, have resulted in a fascination for subjective experiences of the natural and built environment which inspires much of her work.
Paul Miller | F6
Paul Miller is a hoarder of emotions, objects, thoughts and investigations. His interest in the connective tissue of unexplained universes and the shifting laws of physics and humanity influences desire to explore many parallel worlds and hidden realities, abstract and sensorially chaotic, ugly and still beautiful.
Find Paul:
@whoispaulmiller | whoispaulmiller.co.uk
MAFWA Theatre | F3/F4
Mafwa Theatre uses drama and the arts to create work that celebrates both our similarities and differences, bringing people together and speaking truth to power. Their platform highlights and fosters development opportunities for artists and theatre makers from migrant backgrounds, advocates for migrant rights, and celebrates diverse communities. Based in Lincoln Green, Mafwa Theatre has been using arts and cultural exchange to unite families from diverse communities, improve mental health and wellbeing, combat social isolation, and build resilient communities since 2018. They create theatre and live arts interventions, run weekly workshops, and host community celebrations. They also oversaw the transformation of a previously derelict playground, creating the Roxby Community Garden—a vibrant Garden of Sanctuary where the local community can grow food, participate in workshops, meet friends, and enjoy a pocket of green space amidst the high rises
Find MAFWA
@mafwatheatre | mafwatheatre.co.uk
Mikkel Ullah | F5
Mikkel is interested in artist participation and has recently devised and led inter-generational projects, working with children from 8 years to adults in their nineties.
Find Mikkel:
mikkelullah.wixsite.com
Michaela Lesayova | F4
Michaela Lesayova is a cross-disciplinary artist, creative and a specialist coach. In spite of being an early career solo-artist and freelancer, she has operated and worked in the creative industry for almost 15 years.
Find Michaela
@___livingwell/ | living-well.space
Andrew Lister | G6
Andrew Lister makes wall-based figurative work. He uses a range of materials including paint, found objects and recycled wood. Paint is used in the traditional way on canvas for portraits and landscapes but is also used at times with other materials in constructed images in which the subjects range from weapons of war to domestic interiors.
Teresa Flavin | G2
Teresa is an artist, illustrator and children’s book author who creates richly coloured and textured mixed media paintings juxtaposing finely rendered representational imagery with expressive abstraction. Many of Teresa’s artworks incorporate printed ephemera, hand-printed collage papers and materials such as acrylics, acrylic gouache, oil crayons and inks. She often embeds text and pattern that is both hidden and sometimes revealed.
Find Teresa:
@teresa.flavin | teresaflavin.com
Irina Lomash | G1
Irina Lomash is a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds, currently completing an MA in Fine Art in Leeds Arts University. Her practice draws on Jungian and Freudian psychoanalysis to create symbolic works that act as psychological mirrors, inviting viewers to confront hidden aspects of the self. Working across painting, printmaking, and animation, she blends personal memory, archetypal imagery, and layered meanings to evoke curiosity, unease, and self-reflection.
Find Irina:
@irinalomash | irinalomash.com
Ian Kirkpatrick | G5
Ian is a Canadian contemporary artist currently based in the UK. His work is inspired by the history of art and design, from ancient cave paintings and Greek amphorae, to graffiti and computer graphics. The hieroglyphic surfaces of his 2D and sculptural pieces remix iconographies from the past and present, often in response to current political and social themes. He creates most of his work digitally, then manufactures it out of industrial materials including stainless steel, artificial leather, embroidery, vinyl, corrugated cardboard, Perspex and Dibond.
Find Ian:
@iankirkpatrickartist | iankirkpatrick.ca
CA Ryan | M2
My name is CA Ryan. It’s not my real name. The identity of CA Ryan began in 2020 as a new phase of practice in response to the global climate crisis. CA Ryan is a critical position from which to think and act.
Find CA Ryan:
@ca_ryan_2020 | axisweb.org/artist/caryan
Sheila Gaffney | M2
Professor Sheila Gaffney is a sculptor with a long commitment to crafts and the material object. As Professor of Research (Innovation & Development) she contributes to the development and implementation of the University’s research ambitions.
Find Sheila:
@sheilag.gaffney | sheilagaffney.com
*images © Jules Lister
Gabriella Ranito-Baltazar | G2
Gabriella Ranito-Baltazar is an artist based in Leeds, UK. She mostly works in abstract form, using different mediums to create her signature, textured pieces. Gabriella’s atmospheric work is inspired by life events, emotion, and ambience, and absolute individuality. Baltazar’s work aims to create a response from the viewer, and although each of her pieces holds a specific meaning, she aims for the viewer to form an introspective judgement of what it means to them and how it relates to their own experiences.
Find Gabriella:
@gabriella_baltazar_art | gabriellabaltazar.com
Frances Norton | G2
Dr Frances Norton works across a multitude of disciplines, ranging from Byzantine-era iconographic techniques through painting to the craft tradition of North American quiltmaking. The materials and processes used in her work are integral to the finished pieces and her wider practice; the 24-carat gold leaf and mineral pigments such as lapis lazuli used on images are woven with memories of the materials her parents used to create artisan jewellery in their kitchen workshop. Exploring the intersection of contemporary craft with traditional working, her practice often requires one to slow down, focus, and be present in the moment.
Find Frances:
@francesann2819 | frances-ann.blogspot.com
Chris Eastham | G2
Chris Eastham is a Leeds-born artist working primarily with oil paints and monotype printmaking. She has a focus on developing figurative portraiture throughout her work and uses digital media as a means to explore and develop new ideas. Her study at Jacob Kramer College and then Nottingham Trent University has always informed her practice and skill-building, and after studying taught art to others, and now as a practising artist continues to lead classes, helping to develop others’ skills and practices.
Find Chris:
@chrisieastham | chrisieastham.co.uk
Drew Caines
A Leeds-based ceramicist who uses folklore, ethnography and modern art to inspire his collection of beautifully crafted sculptural pieces.
Find Drew:
@drewcainesceramics | eaststreetarts.org.uk/artist/drew-caines
