'I am proud to be from Hartlepool and see this as a great opportunity': Town's new artist-in-residence announced

Anita Sewell has become Hartlepool Art Gallery’s only second artist-in-residence.

A fine art graduate of the town’s Northern School of Art, Anita will spending the next 12 months working from a creative hub based in the gallery in Church Square.

She said: “When I was offered the chance to be artist-in-residence I was shocked and excited to be given such an opportunity.

“I am proud to be from Hartlepool and see this as a great opportunity to further develop my art that is concerned with the towns’ people, industry and cultural heritage.”

The history of Hartlepool and the region’s industrial heritage play a key part in Anita’s art, with a strong emphasis on the town’s people and their cultural traditions.

She says interacting with local people who have unique knowledge of the area’s culture and jobs, which is in danger of being lost, is paramount to creating her work which includes a mixture of photography and sculpture made out of materials found from the local area.

Ashley Landsbury, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Museum and Art Gallery Manager, added: “The gallery’s residency initiative allows us to continue to support the thriving community of local creatives.

“We are delighted to welcome Anita as our second artist-in-residence and are excited to see what she develops this coming year.”

Anita has previously exhibited on the paddle steamer Wingfield Castle in Hartlepool marina as part of her studies.

She was also personally invited by Tees Valley artist Bobby Benjamin to showcase one of her pieces at the first ever Pineapple Black gallery show in Middlesbrough earlier this year.

Hartlepool Art Gallery is open Tuesdays to Saturdays (excluding bank holidays) from 10am to 5pm and entry is free.

The gallery is currently playing host to the third Northern Festival of Illustration which is on until September 15.

Staged by the Northern School of Art it features work by world-renowned illustrators, cartoonists and comic artists.

It also includes the first showing outside London of a series of illustrations from the best-selling 1970s sex manual, The Joy of Sex by Chris Foss.