How to Enter the Art World After.... Hettie Judah & Artist's Presentations

Join us on Sunday 17 May at 2pm for an afternoon with writer and curator, Hettie Judah, as we launch her new book, How to Enter the Art World After... a late start, a first career, illness, raising children, a crisis of confidence, leaving it in disgust...

There will be presentations by artists from the Drawing Projects UK community - including Anita Taylor, Aliceson Green, Sarah Purvey, Eric Butcher - followed by an hour-long discussion and Q&A with writer and curator, Hettie Judah, followed by a book signing and informal conversations.

How to Enter the Art World After is a grown-up guide for any artist whose life is complicated, demanding and, well, human. Informed by years spent working with artists and dozens of candid interviews, it is a myth-busting bonanza full of insights, ideas and inspiration. Can you make it without going to art school? Can you get back into the art world after years away? And what does success actually mean? Frank, funny and occasionally forthright, this is your friend on the path (back) into the art world.

The afternooon will begin with four short presentations by artists - including Anita Taylor, Sarah Purvey, Aliceson Green - who will share some of their recent work, current projects and ideas. These presentations will be followed by a relaxed hour-long Q&A with Hettie. We will be seated in a circle in the Centre for Drawing Project Space, and everyone is invited to participate (an all-Q&A format developed by the artist Ghislaine Leung, who features in the book). Together, the event will move between individual practices and shared discussion, reflecting on how artists navigate entry, re-entry and continuity within the art world.

At the end of the session there will be an opportunity for conversation between participants, and a book signing with Hettie, with How to Enter the Art World After available for purchase. ArtHaus Coffee at Drawing Projects UK will be open throughout the event.

About the event contributors (more information below under Line-up):

Hettie Judah is a writer and curator. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frieze and The Times Literary Supplement, and writes a monthly column for magazine. Her writing on art can also be found in Art Quarterly, Art Monthly, ArtReview and other publications with 'art' in the title. Between 2016 and 2024 she was the chief art critic for the British daily newspaper The i. Hettie curated the which toured venues in the UK between 2024 and 2025, before transferring to VISUAL in Ireland, where it ran until early 2026. The standalone book is published by Thames & Hudson. Following publication of her 2020 study on the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, in 2021 she worked with a group of artists to draw up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents, now available in 16 languages. She regularly talks about art and with artists for colleges, as well as museum and gallery events. A supporter of Arts Emergency she has mentored artists and students through a variety of different schemes. Recent books include (Tate, 2026), (Lund Humphries, 2022) and will be published by Hoxton Mini Press in April 2026. She is currently working on a major book on art and women’s desire, to be published by Thames & Hudson in autumn 2027.

Anita Taylor is an artist, educator and founding Director of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (1994) and Drawing Projects UK (2009). Drawing lies at the core of her practice shaping her studio work, teaching, research, community engagement, and her activities as a writer and curator. Taylor has worked full-time in Higher Education since 1991, and has led four art schools - Wimbledon College of Art in London, National Art School in Sydney, Bath School of Art & Design, and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee - supporting numerous artists to progress into the art world since she started teaching in 1987. Recent solo exhibitions include: Moonraker, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul (2024-25); Vision Art Platform, London Art Fair (2025); Witness, Young Gallery, Salisbury, UK [2018]; DRAWN, The Customs House, South Shields, UK [2017]; Caesura, William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney, Australia [2014]; The Drawing Room, Sydney, Australia [2011]; Peter Pinson Gallery, Sydney, Australia [2009]; A mon seul désir: the tapestry paintings, The Drawing Gallery, UK [2009]; Seeing Something Else, The Drawing Gallery, London [2004] after a number of solo exhibitions held between 1988 and 1991, shortly after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1987.
Aliceson Green studied BA and MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College (2009 & 2024).She began her art education at Croydon Art Foundation before going on to Goldsmiths as a single suburban mother of three. Green recently graduated from the MFA part-time; her children are no longer children, and she now lives in Dorset. Aliceson has taken part in residencies in Berlin, Sweden, Poland and the UK and has been awarded with various Laurels from International Film Festivals. She shared a studio and a large printing press at Drawing Projects UK with Pauline Scott-Garrett until 2025.

Sarah Purvey has held solo exhibitions in St Ives, Bath and Amsterdam and has exhibited widely in group exhibitions including New York, Berlin and London. Her work is represented by galleries both nationally and internationally. Sarah graduated from MA Ceramics at Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University (2009), BA Ceramics, Bath College of Higher Education (1991), and BTec Ceramics, Plymouth College of Art and Design (1988). Sarah's solo exhibition at Drawing Projects UK, The Gathering, will close on Sunday 17 May, and will be open during the event.
Eric Butcher was born in Singapore in 1970, and moved to England in 1974. Through an early study of fine art, a preoccupation with the problems of aesthetics developed, which eventually took him to Cambridge University where he read philosophy. Since graduating from Corpus Christi College in 1994 he has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally with shows in Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Australia and the USA. In 2001, he completed an MA in Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art. In 2007, he was Research Fellow at Arts Institute at Bournemouth and Multiple Perspectives Fellowship. Centre for Art International Research (CAIR), Liverpool School of Art. During 2008-10 he was Artist in Residence at Benson-Sedgwick Engineering, London. In 2025 he won the Rpyal West of England Academy Award as well as the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award which is supprted by the Evelyn Williams Trust, Drawing Projects UK and Hastings Contemporary. He shows with Galerie Robert Drees, Hanover, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London and Nancy Toomey Fine Art, San Francisco.

We look forward to welcoming you to Drawing Projects UK for a fascinating afternoon of presentations and discussions focussed on career journeys in the art world.

Drawing Projects UK is an accessible venue and there is a blue badge parking space on site. We are located next to Trowbridge train station, and there is ample parking nearby.

ArtHaus Coffee will be open from 11am onwards on Sunday 17 May, and the galleries will be open from 1pm.

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