Biography

Misselbrook, born in the UK in 1977, received a BA Honours degree in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University which saw the beginning of her multi-media practice addressing issues surrounding the body as canvas and consumer in response to societal expectations placed upon it. Misselbrook completed a qualification focussing on disordered psychology as well as gaining her PGCE in 2004 from the University of Southampton. In 2007 the artist completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Cyprus College of Art, Paphos and then went on to complete a distinction level Masters in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art in 2011.

Misselbrook has completed placements including: workshops for people with physical disabilities at the Hexagon centre; Associate Lecturer in Art & Design at Southampton City College; Artist Facilitator for ‘a space’ arts organisation and Creative Practice Representative at the Millais Gallery, Southampton. The artist has received multiple grants from Arts Council England and a Leonardo da Vinci Grant. Misselbrook has completed multiple commissions for schools, colleges and business premises and in 2009 installed a series of permanent works at the Fenwick 2 Health Centre in the New Forest, UK. Misselbrook’s artworks have appeared in group and solo exhibitions in various south coast galleries as well as London based and international venues.

The artist’s degree show presented ‘Followed’, a skeletal vertebrae cast in white chocolate morphed into a pair of cupped hands as though waiting for absolution, ‘Monthly’, documenting the artist shaving her head and ‘Pure’, the artist’s torso cast in soap, routinely washed away in exhibition. In 2004, ‘1m2’, a cast of the artist’s body was produced in response to a call for entries which limited the work to a metre in any direction. The work is strapped into a steel cage and spikes aggressively defend it. This work has since been exhibited in a underground medieval vault, the Southampton City Art Gallery and The Crypt in St. Pancras Church. In 2006, a major solo exhibition at the Bargate Monument gallery presented ‘Misplaced’, the artist in a steel cage with elongated arms and knife and fork attachments and ‘Self-conscious’, a looped video showing the meticulous self-policing of the artist’s face.

Misselbrook’s Masters degree show included a large scale sculptural installation and recorded performances conveying educational, religious and submissive acts in quests for ‘perfection’.

The artist has completed various public commissions including a large scale wall based work in rural Catalunya entitled ‘Protection’, inspired by the protection of the Catalan language by women. In 2014, Misselbrook created a large scale installation work in NLCS Jeju, South Korea taking inspiration from the volcanic island and traditional calligraphy and incorporating community performances, casting and body printing. In both 2016 and 2017, Misselbrook was successful in applying to create site-specific installations in public spaces as part of the Riu d’Art residency in Catalunya, Spain.

In early 2018, Misselbrook was selected as part of the Block Chain: The Power of Two online collaborative project organised by Chapel Arts Studios which saw her continued investigation into site-specific, ‘land based’ bodily performances and installations.

In 2019, Misselbrook was invited to create a site specific sculptural installation and performance in the Maials forest of Spain, which was devastated by forest fire. The work was created as part of a large scale project called ‘Cendrart’ – Cendra meaning Ash in Catalan.

Performance to camera from the artist’s isolated studio setting attempts to connect with an audience. This structured behaviour, and controlled casting processes and displays, portray obsessive acts of repetition and the resulting breakages.

Misselbrook adds:

‘I investigate being in, and of a female body, focusing on identity, feminism, strength, power and weakness. The political, social and cultural systems that impose limits on this body with their prescriptions and borders have given way to its connection with the natural world, trees, insects, bones, skulls and rocks. I am an isolated body in a large-scale natural environment, yearning for connection with an audience and questioning whether what I do here is, in fact, heard or seen. With ongoing research into religious and submissive acts within my practice, coming from Catholic education, I play with binary opposites; control and chaos, light and dark, life and death. I am inspired by nature’s ability to overcome itself, the effect of flooding on the ground and the fig tree, with its ability to survive fire and drought. I use natural and found materials; leaves, rocks, charcoal, earth, always questioning the sustainability of creative practice. Through the use of chocolate, soap, latex, wax, degradable or even edible materials, I attempt to present my obsession with the seductive and repellent nature of human anatomy.

As a starting point, I produce monochrome drawings using handmade charcoal from olive wood pruning. I create large scale and site specific installations, using plaster prints of leaves and body parts. Plaster, clinical and white, is juxtaposed against ruined or stained sets of chaotic natural spaces; forest fire sites and cracked and dry soils. Plaster casts break uncontrollably, or are sometimes intentionally destroyed, presenting themselves as part of the creation process, questioning success and failure and reflecting natural chaos. My drawings form a kind of legacy to the lifeless objects that I collect. These drawings are burned to create ash, which is used to make my own paint or to rot my human waste. This space where I work lends itself to live and recorded performance, experimenting with my voice and its echo in the valley. Actions within the build process are recorded; obsessive collecting, tidying, cleaning, burning, drawing, all become part of a performance for the camera. In an attempt to control my surroundings or to make sense of everything, the creative process offers surprising results and connections.’