Biography

Misselbrook, born in Southampton UK in 1977, received a BA Honours degree in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University This 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. In 2004, the artist completed a qualification focussing on disordered psychology. Misselbrook also gained a PGCE from the University of Southampton in the same year. In 2007, Misselbrook 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.

Professional placements have included: 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 including from Arts Council England and a Leonardo da Vinci Grant. Multiple commissions have been produced for schools, colleges and business premises. In 2009, a series of permanent works were installed at the Fenwick 2 Health Centre in the New Forest, UK. Misselbrook’s artworks have appeared in group and solo exhibitions in various galleries along the south coast as well as in central London. International exhibition venues include Cyprus, South Korea and Spain.

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’, which documented 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’.

Public commissions include collaborative exterior 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. 2020/2021 saw the creation of an artis book ‘Upon Reflection’ which presents 25 years of practice.

2022 and 2023 saw various group exhibitions in both the UK and in Cataluyna as well as live performances for Cultura Verda, Ermita 2.0 and Territori festival Ibiza. Misselbrook also became part of the DAR project (Dones Artistes Rurals) with Tectonica Cultural, bringing together rural women artists from the Terres de l’Ebre region to collaborate and support each other.

In 2024, Misselbrook was selected for the 9th edition of Natura i Art in Els Ports with the creation of a site-specific sculptural installation and series of live performances. Also that year, the artist formed a performance collaboration with two other artists to present ‘Alminal’ at Lo Pati in Amposta as part of the Femme in Arts festival. The artist’s latest video creation entitled ‘Descent’ was premiered at The Green Screen at Medol in Tarragona for Cultura Verda in the November of 2024.

Currently, Misselbrook offers workshops to students, graduates and artists from the off-grid studio environment in Riba-roja d’Ebre with a focus on sustainability and reslience. 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.

The artist has recently become an Alumni Fellow with the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University and looks forward to offering current students opportunites and actvities in a hybrid capacity.

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.’