
I am an artist and art tutor. I currently teach life drawing and professional practice on the Fine Art programme at Oxford Brookes University, and am a painting tutor at the Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency. I completed a Masters in Fine Art Professional Practice at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2011, and work from a studio at my home in Jericho, Oxford. I draw on my everyday surroundings as the subject for my work, currently focusing on landscape and still life painting in oils and acrylics. I experience art practice as fundamentally uplifting, and a means of effecting positive change in the world.
I do not believe that there is a one size fits all approach to teaching practical skills in the arts, and work with every student as an individual with a unique talent and worldview that shapes the way that they create work. I emphasise the importance of process , allowing for accident and the unexpected in a workshop, and encourage my students to support one another’s journeys of exploration in the art studio. Ultimately, I hope that the experience of learning through creative practice is as important – if not more so – than achieving a ‘finished’ outcome, but most of my students leave my sessions with work that they would be prepared to share with others.
Forthcoming Workshops [postponed until further notice]
April 2020 Acrylic Painting Workshop at Anneke’s, Oxford
May – June 2020 Introducing oils, Sunningwell School of Art, Oxfordshire
Teaching
2019 – present Contemporary Painting tutor, OVADA, Oxford
2017 – present Associate Lecturer, Fine Art, Oxford Brookes University
Previous Experience
2012 – 2019 Fine Art tutor, Foundation Art and Design, Abingdon and Witney College, Oxfordshire
2016 Painting tutor, OVADA, Oxford
2015 Tutor, BA Fine Art Venice Field Trip, Oxford Brookes University
2015 Ideas in the Making symposium, Oxford University Museum of Natural History
2013 – 2014 Associate Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University
2013 Drawing Workshop tutor, BA Fine Art, Oxford Brookes University
2012 River Runs project, Urbonas Studio, Modern Art Oxford
2012 Artist talk, Oxford Brookes University
Residencies
Aug 2015 Outlandia, London Fieldworks, Glen Nevis, Scotland
June 2013 Art Lab #1 Bern Lovefield, Gepard 14, Switzerland
Selected Exhibitions
2019
Art and the Interconnectedness of All Things, Wolfson College, Oxford
Seven Counties Open 2019, OVADA, Oxford
2017
Below the Surface, OVADA, Oxford
2016
Steam, Old Fire Station, Oxford
2015
Art Lab #2, Fama Fame, London
Ideas in the Making, River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames
2014
JAM, Jam Factory, Oxford
Breaking of Tulips: Unwrapping Books, Oxford Botanical Gardens
2013
Import, Brick Lane Gallery, London
Art Lab #1, Gepard 14, Switzerland
Oxfordshire Artweeks, Workshop Studios, Oxford
2012
Autumn Show, Upstairs Gallery, Berkhamsted
2011
MA Fine Art Degree Show, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London
MA Fine Art Interim Show, The Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, London
2010
Wound, House Gallery, London
BA Fine Art Degree Show, Oxford Brookes University
2009
Go Home, East Gallery, London
Affordable Art Fair, Art File Gallery, London
2008
Alternative Oxford, 03 Gallery, Oxford
Art and Architecture/The City/Realities and Visions, National Gallery of Arts, Albania
Affordable Art Fair, Art File Gallery, Bristol
Obsessions, Modern Art Oxford
Affordable Art Fair, Art File Gallery, London
Qualifications
2013-2015 PGCE Postcompulsory, Oxford Brookes University
2010-2011 MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UAL
2007-2010 BA Fine Art, Oxford Brookes University, UK
1994-1997 BA English Literature/Psychology, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Awards
2010 AHRC Scholarship, UAL
2009 URSS Project: Life on the Wing, Oxford Brookes University/Warwick University
Collections
Oxford Brookes University
Private Collections
All content on this site copyright Laura Degenhardt 2020