Linda Brothwell | Visual Artist
Linda Brothwell (b.1981) is a British visual artist. Her multi disciplinary practice casts her as a maker of objects, tools and publicly sited interventions. She considers what it means to make something by hand that takes ‘care’ as its core, to not only make the ‘thing’ but to make the tools to make the thing, to spend months or years immersed in the techniques, the materials and the stories of a place.
Her ‘Acts of Care’ series initiated a repair movement in the arts and earned recognition through international gallery support, the Jerwood Makers Open (2013), and a place on the Design of the Year shortlist (2009). In 2019 she travelled to Japan as a Churchill Fellow researching ‘The Lifecycle of Tools in Japanese Culture’.
Brothwell’s testimony to the value of craft skills and tools was celebrated in an award-winning co-produced BBC4 documentary Handmade in Hull in 2017.
She has exhibited globally with Palais de Tokyo, representing the UK at Cheongju Craft Biennial and EXD biennial. Her work is included in the V&A and RCA permanent collections and private collections worldwide.
In 2023 Brothwell’s first permanent public artwork ‘Motion Efficiency Study’ in bronze was unveiled on the facade of Bristol Beacon building in Bristol, UK.
Brothwell is a graduate of both The Royal College of Art (2009), where she is now a lecturer, and a Churchill Fellow since 2019.
Emma Crichton Miller:
“It is hard to do justice to the multiplicity and richness of Brothwell's public art making. It is rooted deeply in expert making and in social history - it flowers in so many different, unexpected ways, in gallery spaces and in the public realm. It's nostalgic and creatively forward-looking.”
Solo Exhibitions and Permanent Artworks.
2023 Motion Efficiency Study - Public Artwork. Bristol Beacon, UK.
2019 Conversations in Making - Exhibition. Stonehenge, UK.
2017 The Tool Appreciation Society - Exhibition. Hull, UK.
2016 The Missing - Exhibition. Holburne Museum, Bath, UK.
Group Exhibitions.
2022 Eternally Yours. Somerset House, UK.
2021 We Are Commoners. Oriel Davies, UK.
International KOGEI Award. Toyama, Japan.
2018 Footnotes. Sutton House, London, UK.
2017 Cheongju Craft Biennial, UK Pavillion. Cheongju, S.Korea.
2016 Production Show. Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK.
2015 L’Usage des Formes. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
Build Your Own. Fact Gallery, Liverpool, UK.
2014 Collect Project Space. Saatchi Gallery, London, UK.
The Technical Unconscious. Porto, Portugal.
2013 Jerwood Makers Open. Jerwood Space, London, UK.
2010 Summer Camp Repair Tent. V&A, London, UK.
Waste not, want it. Bloomberg, London, UK.
Happiness for Daily Life. British Council, Gongju, S.Korea.
British Insurance Design of the Year. Design Museum, London, UK.
2009 Timeless. Experimenta Biennial, Lisbon, Portugal.
Awards & Residencies.
2020 Arts Council DYCP grant.
2019 Churchill Fellowship ‘The Lifecycle of Tools in Japanese Culture’.
2016 Arts Council major funding recipient for The Tool Appreciation Society with Hull Libraries.
2013 Cove Park Residency
2013 Jerwood Makers Open award
2010 British Insurance Design of the Year - Furniture Category
Current Positions.
Trustee Spike Island Artspace
Visiting Lecturer Royal College of Art
Publications & Texts.
Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world Katie Treggiden EAN 9789493039896
We are Commoners Craftspace, 2022 - ISBN 978-0-9565121-3-0
Intuitive Geometries: Women Making Contemporary Sculpture Yellowfields, 2020 - ISBN 978-1-8381921-2-9
Conversations in Making Solo Exhibition, Forward by Holly Corfield Carr, 2021
The Tool Appreciation Society Solo Exhibition, Essay by Emma Crichton-Miller, 2017
Collections Issue Hole & Corner Magazine #04, 2015