Courtenay Welcome (b.1997)
Artist, Activist, Creative Director and Critical Thinker.
Welcome’s work explores the rich complexities of race, memory, space and time through painting, installation, text and performance. These explorations tackle, mimic, reconstruct and shift the perspective of universal “truths” within the white walls of the western art world. Welcome depicts the sense of self though lived experiences. Documenting transitions from one embodiment to another, while critically addressing the ways in which these transitions are perceived by institutional means. All informed by a critical infrastructure of decolonisation.
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Artist, Activist, Creative Director and Critical Thinker.
Welcome’s work explores the rich complexities of race, memory, space and time through painting, installation, text and performance. These explorations tackle, mimic, reconstruct and shift the perspective of universal “truths” within the white walls of the western art world. Welcome depicts the sense of self though lived experiences. Documenting transitions from one embodiment to another, while critically addressing the ways in which these transitions are perceived by institutional means. All informed by a critical infrastructure of decolonisation.

Photo by Ronan Mckenzie.
EXPERIENCE
Podcast Producer - Interwave
KASAVA x Control Shift Network
Rising Arts Agency’s - BEIT Leadership Cohort 2020
Spike Island Fellow 2019-2020
Podcast producer : Uncomfortable Truths - Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
Project manager and Workshop Coordinator , Black History Month - Bower Ashton, UWE
Event manager and Curator for ‘___in the___with a ___’
Event manager and Curator for exhibition ‘LADY LAZARUS'
EXPERIENCE
Podcast Producer - Interwave
KASAVA x Control Shift Network
Rising Arts Agency’s - BEIT Leadership Cohort 2020
Spike Island Fellow 2019-2020
Podcast producer : Uncomfortable Truths - Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
Project manager and Workshop Coordinator , Black History Month - Bower Ashton, UWE
Event manager and Curator for ‘___in the___with a ___’
Event manager and Curator for exhibition ‘LADY LAZARUS'
EDUCATION
2016 - 2019 First Class BA (Hons) Fine Art and Visual Culture University of the West of England, UK
2015 - 2016 Foundation degree in Art and Design Walsall College
2013 – 2015 A-levels George Salters Collegiate Academy.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Collective Processes , Gucci Circolo - London
2021 Scratching the Surface , Tate and Lyle Factory - London
2021 Parts of Self , HOME by Ronan Mckenzie , Online
2021 Parts of Self , COB Gallery London
2020 Re-Designing Taboo , Online
2020 Photo Voice , Royal West of England - Bristol SouthWest
2019 Uncomfortable Truths , Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
2019 Agents of Change , Arnolfini - Bristol South West
2019 Dark Matter, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2019 Why Are We Not Here , Test Space - Bristol South West
2018 RITUAL, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2018 ___in the___with a___, Hotwells - Bristol South West
2018 Spike Open, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2018 Please Come In And Leave, Centre Space- Bristol SouthWest
2018 LADY LAZARUS, The Crypt - Bristol SouthWest
2017 MOUTHWASH, The Vestibles - Bristol SouthWest
2017 ACE, Arnolfini - Bristol SouthWest
2017 Flesh, The Crypt - Bristol SouthWest
2017 CRASH TEST, Spike Island - Bristol SouthWest
2016 Communal Crisis, Spike Island - Bristol SouthWest
2016 AF Spring, Old square - Walsall WestMidlands
2016 A&D - Walsall WestMidlands
2016 - 2019 First Class BA (Hons) Fine Art and Visual Culture University of the West of England, UK
2015 - 2016 Foundation degree in Art and Design Walsall College
2013 – 2015 A-levels George Salters Collegiate Academy.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Collective Processes , Gucci Circolo - London
2021 Scratching the Surface , Tate and Lyle Factory - London
2021 Parts of Self , HOME by Ronan Mckenzie , Online
2021 Parts of Self , COB Gallery London
2020 Re-Designing Taboo , Online
2020 Photo Voice , Royal West of England - Bristol SouthWest
2019 Uncomfortable Truths , Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
2019 Agents of Change , Arnolfini - Bristol South West
2019 Dark Matter, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2019 Why Are We Not Here , Test Space - Bristol South West
2018 RITUAL, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2018 ___in the___with a___, Hotwells - Bristol South West
2018 Spike Open, Spike Island - Bristol South West
2018 Please Come In And Leave, Centre Space- Bristol SouthWest
2018 LADY LAZARUS, The Crypt - Bristol SouthWest
2017 MOUTHWASH, The Vestibles - Bristol SouthWest
2017 ACE, Arnolfini - Bristol SouthWest
2017 Flesh, The Crypt - Bristol SouthWest
2017 CRASH TEST, Spike Island - Bristol SouthWest
2016 Communal Crisis, Spike Island - Bristol SouthWest
2016 AF Spring, Old square - Walsall WestMidlands
2016 A&D - Walsall WestMidlands