Workshop: Mouse in the House with Kathryn Ashcroft

Growing up in Yorkshire in the 80s, Kathryn has always loved clunky, rickety, children’s stop-frame animations, which champion the underdog, and beautiful, inky children’s book illustrations, which allowed her to escape into an alternate world.

Kathryn says: ” “I originally trained as a Theatre Designer, which gave me a strong grounding into interpreting text into a visual narrative, and consequently fell in love with the model-making process, the control in creating tiny worlds allows me to feel a sense of control over my own. For the past 19 years I have combined my own creative practise alongside teaching Art and Photography in a secondary school; working with a range of children and young people on a daily basis has given me a very deep insight into the complexities of their lives, emotions, vulnerabilities, fears and needs, and the human condition.

“In my work I explore combinations of ceramic and textile processes with contemporary Theatre Design techniques to create textural and visual sensory sculptures with a strong sense of narrative and nostalgia.

“The mice, and their world, created within my artwork are a metaphor for the invisible (because this is how I have always viewed myself). They inhabit the empty ‘forgotten’, but vital, space within walls. They are industrious, inventive and survival-driven, resourcefully using whatever is available to them.

“I have a fascination with texture and the fundamental imprint that it leaves upon our memories and how this can transport us immediately back to places in our past, which then can aid in consolidating our present.”