About
I live and work in a remote corner of Cumbria, England. This place beneath the Fiend’s Fell is part of the North Pennine ore-field which has been mined for lead and silver for more than a thousand years and the remnants of working lives spent mining, farming and quarrying, are all around. My work is figurative and speaks of the contemporary, post-industrial landscape and fleeting presence of humanity.
The village is a living portrait and the skin of the rough, upland earth behind it, stretches over a dark and ancient realm which isn’t under human control; a hollowed corpse, brutally conquered by pick and tenacity, and intimately excavated for its riches can lay subliminal claim on those who enter. This wild and remote ‘depthscape’ holds a past vested now in the memory of just a few while increasingly, most remain concerned with the surface of things, the knowable.
I embed found materials, plant matter and minerals into hand-made paper pulp clay which is stained and patinated with earth pigments bound in egg tempera to connect medium with meaning. Interested in the stories not yet heard, human impact on the land and the imprint of the land on people, I wonder what resonates today, whether there is tension between mobility and rootedness and how places can become their best to sustain life for all.
Growing up on edgelands in rural Leicestershire, I have always been acutely aware of continuing processes of change and renewal.
In 1993 I was studying Fine Art BA (hons) at Sunderland University on a part-time basis when my day job ended and I was unable to complete the course. Several years later, I became an apprentice in Public Art at CartmelJohnson Studios where I worked mostly in stainless steel and bronze. I went on to an MA at Cumbria Institute of Arts focusing on how participatory art can be used in rural areas to shift thinking and develop a shared understanding of place. To enable engagement I moved to paper-based materials.
For over two decades I scoped, managed and made work for large and small scale arts/heritage/community projects . Armed with The Welfare State Handbook, ‘Engineers of the Imagination’ I honed skills in puppetry making carnival heads, shadow shows, marionettes, rod puppets then automata, alongside work in arts engagement.
Moving to an audience engagement role with Cumbria Archive Service in 2012 was transformational, leading me to establish my creative practice working with paper, which has continued to this day. The historical sources enabled me to live alongside people from the past and this became a fundamental thing - to live with those who have lived and find companionship in people who are no longer alive. I created a town trail of automata and story boxes ‘Beneath the Beacon’, based on past lives and funded by Arts Council England. I set up @dawnhurtonartist instagram account to share my work more widely.
In 2022 I left my job Cultural Lead (Libraries) Cumbria County Council to develop work as a scuptor on a full-time basis. A friend’s family archive collection sparked an interest in barytes (barium sulphate) mining which is connected with the lead mining heritage of the area. I developed a paper pulp clay using the white mineral and began to realise that, much more than a surface to paint on, paper is an art medium in its own right. I have since been exploring how, through texture, casting, embedding, wrapping, printing, mark making, pigmentation and form, I am able to use this organic beautiful material. Collaboration with the Paper Foundation at Burneside has greatly aided this process.
I continue to research the lead and mineral mining of the area and a daily walk across the fells is an integral part of my practice. This feeds my work. Please get in touch if you would like a more detailed C.V.