Artists

Self Assembly Exhibition
5 Artists have been commissioned to create new works that repurpose and reinvent Ikea products:

Rachael Elwell
Rachael Elwell is a practicing visual artist based at Islington Mill, Salford, Lancashire, who completed an MA in Contemporary Fine Arts in 2007.
Her practice is based in contemporary knitting and crochet work and experimental drawing processes.
As the co-founder of the fibre art collaborative group Artyarn, Rachael crochets and knits for gallery installations, community arts projects and site-specific work.
Her work has been exhibited at Bury Art Gallery (UK), Rochdale touchstones Art Gallery (UK), ArToll Kunst Labor (DE), Museum CODA Appeldorn (NL), Bluetenweiss Raum Fuer Kunst Berlin (DE), International Fibre Collaborative New York (USA) and  The Atkinson Art Gallery Southport (UK).
She will be the artist in resdience at Artists Unlimited, Bielefeld (DE) in 2009-2010.

www.rachaelelwell.co.uk
www.rachaelelwell.blogspot.com
www.artyarn.blogspot.com

Johnny O’Hanlon
Johnny O’Hanlon is an artist with a theatre background and a user centred approach. In 2001 he set up HamFisted! – an experimental arts company based in Birmingham. HamFisted! produces live theatre and visual artworks, in conventional and unconventional spaces, all with the aim of putting smiles on people’s faces. In his workshops and through his art Jonny aims to offer activities to inspire and excite the imagination of both children and adults.

For Self Assembly Jonny will be fulfilling a lifelong ambition to make a chair from Ikea pencils. He will be documenting the making process on his blog.
hamfistedarts.wordpress.com
www.hamfisted.org.uk

Janet Vaughan
Janet Vaughan is a visual artist and designer who has designed site specific and touring film and theatre works, and created installation artworks for unusual and digital spaces. She often works in collaboration with other artists or the public on residency-based projects, often as part of capital development initiatives or artist-led regeneration of the built environment.
Janet’s work can be characterised as creative investigation of people and places; concerned with collecting and re-appropriating memories, making playful connections and concocting plausible fictions in response to spaces. She is one third of Coventry’s acclaimed Talking Birds, and creator of the Company’s webworks, including [helloland*]; described by the Independent as “innovative and unusual…akin to taking part in a David Lynch movie.”
The (as yet untitled) Coat is a companion piece to Mrs Gibson’s Coat, a work she made for the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry. Weaving together Ikea fabrics and products, the coat will give the viewer a glimpse of the history of the lives lived on the site prior to the building of Ikea.
www.vornster.co.uk

Vortex Creates
Vortex Creates is an exciting new company specialising in designing and making large-scale costumes and installations for celebratory events. The creative directors Marianne Taviner and Nicola Richardson have a specific interest and background in carnival.  Their costumes and installations strive for a kinetic feel and work with the performer and within space. Although a young company, Vortex Creates has already developed an international reputation as they have recently been shortlisted for the prestigious World of Wearable Art competition in New Zealand.

Vortex Creates are new to the phenomenon that is Ikea Hacking, but are keen to produce a costume that is captivating worn on the body and stands as a work of art when off the body.  Their costume will comprise of the familiar Ikea blue and yellow carrier bag essential we all know and love, mixed in with some other Ikea favourites!
www.vortex-creates.co.uk