HAZEL EVANS                                       Visual Artist

British born Artist Hazel Evans graduated with BA hons in Contemporary Art from Nottingham Trent University in 1997, specialising in visual and performance art. As part of her degree she spent four months studying at the University of Milwaukee in the USA, studying painting, creative writing and silver jewellery making. Before living in Dorset, where she is now based, Hazel Evans spent eight years living and teaching in France where she became fluent in French and gained a diploma in French Language. Whilst in France she continued her art practice with paintings inspired by her surroundings on the south-coast near Montpellier and Grenoble in the the French Alps, including live painting performances in French Cafés. After a dramatic departure from France, Hazel spent time in the Philippines and Tanzania, becoming an advanced diver and gaiing a BTEC in Tropical Habitat Conservation whilst furthering her artistic studies of the natural environment by exploring life under the surface of the sea. Having spent most of her 20s abroad, upon her return to England Hazel began to rediscover life as an artist in England, and set up a contemporary jewellery making business, having been inspired by her findings in the Philippines. Despite the success of her jewellery designs and even being specially commissioned to create cat tiaras for Sky Television's Animal Planet, Hazel's passion for visual arts bagan to take the forefront of her interest and she now focuses her creativity on her multi media work as a visual artist.

After gaining a wide range of skills over the last ten years Hazel Evans made the transition form jewellery design to her passion of visual arts by creating a piece involving storywriting, jewellery, and the creation of the character of Catherine Elliot; this was the beginning of  her live art piece 'Artefacts'.  In 2009 this piece was one of 30 selected to be part of  'ReOpen', a collaboration exhibition between Lighthouse and KUBE Gallery Poole. 'Artefacts', which explores the idea of fake artefacts and fiction developed into a live art piece which featured during Dorset Art Weeks 2010 (DAW) with Dorset Visual Arts, 100sq ft London in 2010 and New Brewery Arts in 2011.

Further to her live art performance for DAW, Lighthouse offered Hazel the position of becoming their first Visual Artist-in-Residence in 2010. Since then Hazel Evans has been working closely with Lighthouse to champion the visual arts in Poole and local area. Hazel has been developing her practice drawing inspiration from working in a performance arts venue and has worked closely with The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) producing a collection of illustrative works that capture the energy of orchestral music. Hazel has found a particular affinity in creating works during music and dance performances and has used her studies to inform her live art work and exhibitions.

Hazel's main areas of focus are illustration and writing which she then stretches the boundaries to incorporate live art, performance, music and most recently experiments with film and the documentation of her work. In October 2011 Hazel revealed 'The Monochronium' in the form of a developmental exhibition collaborating with over 40 artists to explore the realms of working in Black and white. Hazel continues to further her practice at Lighthouse and in collaboration with the Arts University College Bournemouth (AUCB) and is currently working on producing her next developmental stage of her work which she also intends to share publicly.

Since re-launching herself art career in Britain, Hazel has worked on several successful artist collaborations making art more accessible to the public with her live art events. In 2008 she began a collaboration with artist Johanna Lawrence as art duo The Empressarios, working collaboratively on paintings, pastel drawings and poetry. And in 2010 she devised the live art event 'The Bookshelf' with Frances Hatch as part of Poole Literary Festival and was sponsored by Oxfam. The Bookshelf has also featured in April 2011 in the 'Lost for Words' exhibition at Walford Mill and The Monochronium. Publications also include illustrations for Sting in the Tale's Festival of Stories souvenir brochure.

Hazel's work has gained the attention of lots of press in the local area over the last year with her approachable and quirky style, and since returning to England has been successfully re-establishing herself on the British arts scene in the South West of England through her work as a visual artist, artist collaborator and arts coordinator.

Hazel Evans' current themes of exploration include words, music, fantasy, stories, travel and the performing arts through illustration, visual art and characterisation. Recent works have been exploring the connection of music and performance to visual and live art.