Studio artists

Modern Clay is a co-operative clay studio run by artist members that produce ceramics, run public workshops and design bespoke projects with charitable organisations.

You can visit Modern Clay’s website here: https://www.modernclay.org/

You can visit Contemporary Other’s website here: https://contemporaryother.org/ 

Maryam Aisha is a multi-disciplinary Birmingham-based artist, using textiles, print and pottery to explore, reconnect, and navigate her identity as a British-Pakistani Muslim woman. She is particularly concerned with drawing attention to decorative art and the ways in which it can be used to explore personal and collective histories, cultural practices and traditions including but not limited to artmaking itself. Though decorative art may excite the eye, Maryam is interested in showcasing the ways in which art can transcend ‘decoration’ and instead is intimately connected with worship and the remembrance of God.

She is also interested in photography and film, capturing processes, and building her own history and archives. Her work has previously been exhibited at the Ort Gallery Member’s Show (2022), Birmingham School of Art (2023), Bene Culture (2024), Southbank Centre (2024) and more.

Maryam is joining Grand Union as part of the BCU Studio Residency 2025-26.

Simon & Tom Bloor are artists who make works for and about public space, addressing the histories and fabric of the built environment and our social relationships to it.

You can visit Simon and Tom’s website here: http://www.simonandtombloor.com/

Artist/researcher Roo Dhissou works with communities, diasporas, and her own histories. Using community-engaged practice, craft, cooking, performance, and installation she explores how communal and individual identities are formed.
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Roo has worked with BMAG, New Art Gallery Walsall, The Bluecoat, Tate Liverpool, Primary, and internationally in Spain, Canada, and Poland.

You Can visit Roo’s website here: https://roodhissou.com/

Keith Dodds is a graphic designer specialising in book covers, editorial design for books and publications, and branding for cultural organisations. His work is found on bookshelves around the world, has appeared on the news at six, and was waved around by an angry Ted Cruz in the 2022 US Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

You can visit Keith’s website here: https://keithdodds.studio/

Sarah Hamilton Baker is an artist specialising in performance, sensory exploration, food, and facilitation. She is the creator of touch screen and has worked on numerous directing, performing, and facilitation projects, with organisations such as Ikon, The Exchange, Grand Union, The Rep, and Flatpack.

Andrew Lacon has long been interested in how public displays of objects can explore relationships between national culture, social class and artistic intention. He is currently developing new work in response to his research into Latin America following residencies at Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevideo, Uruguay (2023), URRA with Gasworks, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2021) and SOMA, Mexico (2015). Andrew has exhibited internationally and is represented by Division of Labour.

You can visit Andrew Lacon’s website here: https://andrewlacon.co.uk/

Farwa Moledina is an artist working primarily with textiles. Her work is inspired by art history, architecture, and her own cultural background. It is characterised by recurring patterns and delves into themes of faith, family, and the histories of Muslim women.

You can visit Farwa’s website here: https://www.farwamoledina.com/

Joanne Masding has a sculptural practice and makes work to⁠ think about how objects are known and absorbed by bodies and through technological interfaces. 

Making exhibitions, public artworks, and workshops, she’s worked with organisations including Bluecoat,⁠ Eastside Projects, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin Natural History Museum, and Persimmon Homes. Joanne also runs Studio Outlet, which sells things made by artists.

You can visit Joanne’s website here: https://www.joannemasding.com/

Greg Milner is a portrait and lifestyle photographer based in Birmingham. His portfolio spans arts, culture, heritage, higher education, government, and commercial sectors and his work can be seen on buildings, buses, and billboards across the West Midlands. His portraiture is currently on display at The Exchange as part of CREDiBLE.

You can visit Greg’s website here: https://gregmilnerphotography.co.uk/

David Rowan is a visual artist based in Birmingham, U.K. Working professionally for over twenty years in the cultural heritage sector, David has produced thousands of artworks for art galleries, universities, advertising agencies, and private clients. His work is regularly published in national and international press, news media, journals, and digital channels.

You can visit David’s website here: http://www.davidrowan.org/

Sarah Taylor Silverwood works with drawing, often in collaboration with other people. Taking the form of public artworks, animations, ceramics, books, and textiles, her work combines her interests in making, storytelling, and participatory practice.
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Sarah joined Grand Union studios in 2017 and is also a co-director member of Modern Clay, a cooperative ceramics studio also located in Minerva Works.

You can visit Sarah’s website here: https://www.sarahsilverwood.com/

Natasha is one of our Bruntwood Artists in Residence for 2025-2026.

The work Natasha makes explores the layered experience of existing as a British Punjabi Lesbian through subverting traditional craft processes and using them to tell contemporary narratives. Natasha comes from a family of tailors that used their hands to make a living, this connection to material is something that she carries into her art making through drawing, ceramics, and printmaking.

To Natasha, drawing is an act of personal meditation, a space to manifest queer utopias, work through her thoughts and find an entry point to have conversations about complex experiences. Her ceramic work – ornate goblets, bowls and incense holders – explore themes of ritual and self-honouring.

Natasha’s practice is a celebration of brown queer joy, a reflection on belonging, and an ongoing dialogue between where she comes from and who she is.

You can find out more about Natasha Taheem by clicking here.

Nilupa Yasmin is an artist and educator working with a primarily lens-based practice. She explores the principles of art and craft, and the expanded materiality within photography, and is interested in the notion of culture, self-identity, and anthropology in her practice.
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Yasmin’s work is included in many permanent and private collections including Government Art Collection, The New Art Gallery Walsall, and Birmingham Museums Collection.

Nilupa’s website can be found here: https://www.nilupayasmin.com/

Mads Washbrook is a multi-disciplinary storyteller who weaves narratives across painting, sculpture, performance film, and writing. These threads of practice entangle across these processes to explore contemporary misunderstandings of mythological and folkloric storytelling from temporal change, unrecorded histories and object interpretation. Mads was awarded the Mike Holland Prize in 2022 and the Whitworth Wallis Fellowship in 2023/4.

Mads is joining Grand Union as part of the BCU Studio Residency 2025-26.

You can find Mads’ website here: https://madswashbrook.com/ 

You can find out more about Courtenay Welcome by clicking here.

Matt Westbrook is an artist, educator, and founding member of Grand Union Studios & Gallery. He’s had a studio at Grand Union since 2009. He is course leader for the Foundation Diploma Art and Design course at Dudley College and a visiting lecturer at Loughborough University. His work is in the Deutschebank, Bruntwood, and University of Birmingham collections.

Westbrook is interested in heterotopic space and he employs parameters in his collage-making process to force connections between imagery. Works are often made from a single image source in an attempt to unlock hidden imagery within the original material.

Matt’s website can be found here: https://mattwestbrook.co.uk/ 

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Stuart Whipps often makes work about things he doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to do. Recently this includes restoring a 1979 Mini with the assistance of former British Leyland workers, training to make geological thin sections at the University of Birmingham, and propagating Begonias at West Dean in Sussex.

He has exhibited his work across the UK and internationally and is the recipient of a number of awards. He works predominantly with photography and video with occasional forays into sculpture.

You can visit Stuart’s website here: https://stuartwhipps.studio/