Abbie Severn is from Pembrokeshire, Wales and moved to Birmingham in 2015 to study Visual Communication – Illustration at Birmingham City University. After graduating with a 1st class Degree with a project documenting Pembrokeshire, Abbie completed a 1-year Artist in Residence at Parkside Print Room, BCU. Reporting on her secondary surroundings was a natural step and where the Digbeth Project began. The Digbeth Project involved 3 years of documenting the creative quarter of Birmingham, through on-site drawing, sensory mark-making and further refined large scale drawings and screen prints.
Her intension is to capture the streets before developmental change begins to take the area into its next chapter, as well as the energy brought to the area from the creative community within. Gentrification will see a change to the area’s underground culture of post-industrial rugged warehouses home to street art, music, and creative studios.
Since completing the project, Abbie has focused on client work; including bespoke urban and seascapes, wedding invitation, album artwork, and this year has started teaching workshops and developing art events.
With new developments like the BBC studios and HS2 taking more and more shape over Digbeth’s landscape now, Abbie has begun reworking pieces from the collection to comment on its change. Fleeting Floodgate is the first experiment, with collaged sections to create a glitched effect on this street’s history snapshot.
