Emergence Exhibition 8th - 24th April, Birmingham School of Art

Dinah Hewson - Highly Commended at Birmingham Open 2025

Last year, I was delighted to receive the Highly Commended award at the Birmingham Open for my painting The Upside Down.

Part of the prize was the opportunity to take part in an exhibition with the other 2 winners, Ispahani Mukah and Ayodeji Awoyomi.

When the organisers confirmed the exhibition would take place in April 2026, I spent the next 5 months making new work to show.

To see the video installations in action, go to the Video Installations page.

About my work in Emergence

Video Installations

On The Inside Out video installation 2026

As a painter with a love of cinema, I have a habit of interpreting ordinary places as potential locations for dramatic narrative. Having incorporated video editing and sound recording into my practice, I am using the exciting medium of film to include actors moving in, around and out of my painting compositions. I’m intrigued by the interplay of moving images within a static painting; The video installations Spaghetti Junction Wilderness and On The Inside Out are primarily experiments in how we view spaces and infer meaning. To my mind, it is the function of every art form to reveal beauty and significance in the mundane and everyday. Like an artist plans a composition, a cinematographer frames a scene with consideration for light, colour, camera angles and camera position/movement in order to help an audience to understand a story and to manipulate their emotions. Unlike a conventional film-maker, so far I haven’t started with a screenplay or shooting script to work from; however, I do draw storyboards, because the visual aesthetics of the film are my priority.

Spaghetti Junction Wilderness video installation 2026

Last year, after I graduated from the Masters course, I wanted to continue working with film at home. I bought a cheap projector, various recording devices and camera rigs, and began by “shooting anything that moved”! This saw me out on my usual walks through parks and towpaths with a big rucsac full of equipment; filming running water, raindrops, sunlit ripples reflected on the ceilings of bridges, and so on. The working title of Spaghetti Junction Wilderness was simply Water Film, until one day I felt inspired to compare tree trunks with the vertical pillars of the famous motorway intersection and the film took on a new poignancy about seeking nature within our concrete environments. With On The Inside Out, my initial objective was to use steps and staircases as a visual motif, as they are interesting methods by which actors make their entrances and exits. I also wanted to understand how to shoot and record convincing dialogue, as my first two films only had a musical score. Collaborating with friends who have a talent for performing, it seemed only natural that the film evolved to have a conventional narrative; albeit a light-hearted, playful one about female artists who break free from prison and go on the run in Birmingham. They are pursued by “The Man” a mysterious bowler-hatted character who commands a team of similarly-costumed “agents” who are intent on rounding up the subversive women. The theme was decided after conversations with my artist friends on the topics of surveillance culture, women’s safety in cities, ageism and societal expectations of the women.

Paintings

I have included some of my most recent paintings in the show; all of which are concerned with urban spaces connected with the larger installations. The Upside Down was the work which earned me the Highly Commended award at the 2025 Birmingham Open. This painting of canal bridge number 75 near Knowle, is a few miles from my home, and depicts the fascinating natural light and reflections on a sunny July day. Later in the year, I happened to be down there on Christmas Day for a family walk, just as the midwinter sunset lit the space with extraordinarily drama. I was quick enough to capture the scene with photos and developed a second painting with a different ambiance to the original.

Fragments from Spaghetti Junction Wilderness and On The Inside Out video installation 2026