Process over polish, lines still in motion…
At Bridewell Studios and Gallery this May, the line between studio and exhibition space is being deliberately blurred.
Being There – Conversations in Drawing isn’t a show in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s a three-week residency that invites the public into the process itself—into the uncertainty, repetition and quiet decisions that sit behind finished work. Featuring Colette Lilley, Jon Barraclough and Sarah Jane Richards, the gallery will operate as an open, working studio, with visitors able to drop in, observe and engage with drawing as it unfolds.
All three artists are co-curators of Drawing(paper)Show, a project that has steadily built a reputation for championing drawing through exhibitions, publications and an expanding artist directory. What began as an Instagram-based open call now draws hundreds of submissions from across the international drawing community—an approach rooted in accessibility and visibility that feeds directly into this residency.
What makes Being There particularly compelling is its refusal to present drawing as a finished object. Instead, it positions it as something active and unresolved.
For Barraclough, the residency opens with Hauntology, a new installation that revisits work from the 1980s. “I’ve been revisiting work from the 1980s and am reintroducing figures and portraiture into my practice,” he says. “This residency lets me share that work and open up conversations around it.” His thinking is shaped in part by Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology—how the past lingers within the present. “I’m interested in how drawing can hold these ghost-like traces,” he adds. It’s less about nostalgia than persistence—images carrying what came before into what comes next.
Lilley’s focus turns inward. Known for her structured approach to portraiture, she uses the grid as both framework and discipline. Here, she’s pushing that further, introducing colour while interrogating her own process. “I’m also using the residency to examine my own process—questioning whether it’s driven by habit or has become a form of ritual,” she explains. “Through repetition and sustained practice, I hope to understand how structure shapes both the act of making and the work that emerges.” It’s a line of enquiry that sits neatly within the residency’s emphasis on process over outcome.
Richards, meanwhile, expands drawing beyond the page. Her practice, rooted in walking and observation, takes Bidston Hill as a starting point. “I’m using this residency to deepen my exploration of drawing through walking,” she says. “The studio gives me space to work at scale and test how drawing can become a physical, spatial experience.” Just as important is the shared environment: “I’m also excited to work alongside Colette and Jon and to open up conversations with visitors about drawing as a shared, exploratory practice.”
Across three weeks, Being There unfolds through open studios, pop-up exhibitions and an evolving body of work. Visitors aren’t just seeing outcomes—they’re encountering decisions in real time, conversations between artists, and the shifting nature of ideas as they’re tested and reworked.
In a city with no shortage of exhibitions, this feels like a subtle but important shift. Less about presenting a finished narrative, more about letting people see how that narrative is constructed. Being There – Conversations in Drawing opens Thursday 7 May, with open studio sessions throughout and a closing event on 20 May.
