Meet: Elleanna Chapman
- Written byGiada Maestra
- Published date 21 July 2026
Share story
Central Saint Martins (CSM) alumna Elleanna Chapman recently took over the Saatchi Gallery as part of the Good Eye Projects group exhibition, alongside four other UAL graduates. We caught up with the artist to discuss her journey from university to exhibiting at one of London’s premier gallery spaces.
The artists:
Elleanna Chapman, 2021, Foundation Diploma in Fine Art, Central Saint Martins (CSM), UAL
Lily Bunney, 2020, BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins (CSM), UAL
Sonya Derviz, 2014, Foundation Diploma, Central Saint Martins (CSM), UAL
Amélie Mckee, 2018, BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art (CCW), UAL
Leon Scott-Engel, 2019, Foundation Diploma in Fine Art, Central Saint Martins (CSM), UAL
Hi Elleanna! Tell us more about yourself and what you do.
I’m an artist interested in how art can act as a political catalyst, especially in regard to class struggle and revolution. Coming from a working-class background in Essex I frame my investigation into these ideas through the aesthetics I grew up around: namely the kitsch and the pop-cultural. I primarily work in installation, using bedazzling (the application of rhinestones, commonly associated with the maligned ‘Essex girl’) and wheat paste (a homemade glue used for political and subcultural flyposting), to explore the hierarchies of tastes and materiality that dominate the rather elitist contemporary art world.
You studied a Foundation Diploma in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL in 2021. How was your experience as an art student?
My experience at CSM was quite transformative, and I gained a lot from completing my Foundation. Due to Covid, my studies were somewhat disrupted, but I still learnt a lot from my peers and tutors, some of whom I’m still in contact with. Most significantly, my course gave me consistent access to London for the very first time. Every week, I commuted from Essex to London, and I began to see the wealth of cultural potential that existed within the city – something I was keen to experience and to learn from. During my studies, I joined the Revolutionary Communist International, which I’m still an active member of. This invigorated my studio work and provided me with the practical experience I needed to develop a meaningful political practice. I now try to understand my political organisation as a sort of social practice in and of itself. This then justifies, informs, and underpins the rest of my output in the studio.
Why did you choose that course? Was there something specific you wanted to achieve?
The Foundation at CSM was quite unique as it’s one of the very few courses in the country where you can specialise in Fine Art from the outset. Since secondary school I knew I wanted to study Fine Art specifically as I was really interested in its expansive and conceptual nature. Rather than trying out different disciplines in my first term, I was able to experiment within different forms of Fine Art, and I was able to try my hand at things like sculpture and film, which I didn’t have access to at secondary school. As I was already set on what I wanted to do, this really worked well for me and offered the opportunity to immerse myself in the world of contemporary art from very early on.
What did you do after graduating?
After CSM, I completed my undergraduate degree in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. I was the first in my family to go to university, and so this really felt like a big achievement. Compared to CSM, the Ruskin was a much smaller cohort, and of course, outside of London, and I think both experiences worked well together to give me a balanced experience of art school overall. I graduated with First Class Honours from the Ruskin in 2024, and since then, I have been working at sustaining my practice, without all the safety nets that art school provides. In 2023, I was awarded The Supporting Act Foundation’s Creative Bursary, which allowed me to build a hot pink garden studio to work out of, and I undertook a number of residencies with The Koppel Project, Bow Arts, Acme Studios, and Good Eye Projects in order to meet people in the London art scene and to develop my ideas. In 2025, I was awarded the Emergent Prize by the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and Shape Arts, resulting in a residency and upcoming showcase at Baltic which is due to take place in late 2026.
You and 4 other alumni recently had work on display at the Saatchi Gallery as part of the Good Eye Projects residency programme - congratulations! Tell us more about it.
This exhibition came about due to the Good Eye Projects residency programme which I was a part of in 2025. The residency alone was such an amazing opportunity – the programme focuses on building a community of artists, supplemented by visits from industry professionals and group trips to several galleries and arts organisations. The residency ends with an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery to showcase that year’s resident artists. Exhibiting at the Saatchi was an incredible opportunity that I wanted to make the most of. We were given so much freedom in terms of what we could show, which led me to develop a new work for the occasion: Attack of the 50 Foot Comrade. This installation allowed me to make use of the huge gallery walls, but also the huge footfall, platforming my political allegiances and aesthetic inclinations simultaneously. As well as myself, the exhibition featured 4 other UAL alumni; Lily Bunney, Sonya Derviz, Amélie Mckee and Leon Scott-Engel. It was really lovely for us all to celebrate together. Although Lily and I didn’t study at CSM at the same time, Good Eye Projects really brought our practices and personalities together, and now we’re working on an ongoing collaborative project together, which is really exciting!
What’s next for you and your practice?
In June I will be exhibiting outside of the UK for the first time as part of Basel Social Club in Switzerland. In collaboration with Teaspoon Projects, Lily Bunney and I will be presenting a number of new works, including our first co-authored painting. Currently, I’m really interested in icons, and how the images of political figures and celebrities can come to stand as accidental signifiers of social issues. My collaboration with Lily speaks to this fascination, and it’s a topic I hope to delve into further in my upcoming projects. This summer, for example, I’ll be unveiling my first public artwork, commissioned by Focal Point Gallery in Essex, which may or may not include a familiar face, or two. I’m also in the process of figuring out a new, site-specific installation for my showcase at the Baltic in late 2026, through which I want to explore the notion of the hero. It’s been a busy year already, and I feel very lucky to be able to maintain a practice that feels true to my personal and political aspirations. Given my background, I never thought that being an artist was doable. It takes some hard graft, and lots of plate-spinning, for sure, but it’s possible. Anyone should feel that they can be an artist, and this is, ultimately, one of the key ideas I’m trying to fight for through my work.
