Bev Broadhead

Bev Broadhead is a painter, stitcher and maker of objects based in Cromer, on the North Norfolk coast. Living in a rural coastal town, she draws much of her work from psychogeography and situationist theory. Her visual language swerves between abstraction and representation: forms are often semi-recognisable, grounded in imagined realities, with a nod to medieval wall painting, rough patterns, illustration and accidental mark-making. Recent work centres on grids and repeating patterns that go astray, in both paint and stitch.

She is drawn to environmental relationships, whether physical, psychological or political, and tends to highlight interdependence, frailty and imperfection as an antidote to success-driven endeavour.

Bev holds a first-class BA in Fine Art Painting and an MA in Fine Art from Norwich University College of the Arts. She was a founder member of Paint Club East, sat on the steering committee of the artist-led Norwich Outpost gallery, and was instrumental in establishing Cromer ArtSpace, where she curated Chalk*Clay*Sand*Salt, an exhibition of more than 30 works for the town's first art festival in 2021.

She is active in her community and in the Norfolk and Suffolk branch of Artists' Union England, with a continuing concern for the precarious position of artists as workers. Through the local foodbank she brought together Darn It!, a weekly group sharing waste-reducing ideas, up-cycling and creative activity for wellbeing, and she has taught in Spain, in primary schools and in family learning.