‘Them and [uz]’: Artist Panel Discussion

Dive deeper into some of the themes and artworks on display in the ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]’ exhibition.

Join us for a special ‘spring up’ panel discussion with artists Simeon Barclay, Kedisha Coakley, Will Hughes, Sam Metz, Beth Smith and Bethany Stead. Gain a fascinating insight into the latest exhibition at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery.

‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds’ is a celebration of the breadth and vitality of work by artists from working-class backgrounds. It features the work of over thirty modern and contemporary artists who were born in or have significant connections to Yorkshire.

The panel discussion will be chaired by exhibition curator Dr Laura Claveria. It is an opportunity to hear from some of the exhibiting artists about their practice, artistic process and thoughts about the exhibition. They will also discuss issues around class inequality and their intersectional experiences around class in the art world.

There will be an opportunity to visit the exhibition before the panel discussion starts at 5.30pm at stage@leeds.

Biographies

Simeon Barclay (b.1975, Huddersfield, UK) spent his formative years during the 90s employed as a machine operative whilst being devoted to the transformative potential of clubs, music, fashion and youth culture movements across the UK. Channeling those alternative modes of expression, he would later attend night school before taking up a place at art college, graduating in (2014) with an MFA from Goldsmiths College. Barclay is the recent recipient of the Kenneth Armitage Sculpture Fellowship; the Roberts Institute of Art, Practising Performance Commission; Ares Art Award, and was included in the Heywood Gallery Touring exhibition; British Art Show 9. Barclay lives and works in West Yorkshire & London. 

Kedisha Coakley is a British-Caribbean artist whose practice spans sculpture, printmaking, archival research, and community engagement. Her work challenges inherited interpretations of history, inviting viewers to reconsider social and cultural narratives from alternative perspectives. Rooted in reflections on selfhood, childhood memory, and personal ritual, Coakley’s practice engages cultural history and material memory to reframe African-Caribbean presence within British narratives. She examines the afterlives of colonialism through objects that carry historical and emotional weight, using materially transformative processes such as casting, imprinting, cyanotype, collagraph, and metalwork. Alongside her artistic practice, Coakley works as a Collections Assistant at The Hepworth Wakefield, where she catalogues and archives the Ronald Moody Trust gift. 

Will Hughes (They/Them) work deals with concepts of aspiration, queerness and glamour. They graduated from a BA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University in 2018 and was awarded the Kenneth Armitage Foundation, Graduate Award. Following a year-long studio fellowship at spike island in Bristol, Hughes moved to the North East in 2019 to study an MFA at the BxNU institute. In 2021 Hughes was artist in residence at BB15 in Linz, Austria and in 2024 was artist in residence at Lightpool festival in Blackpool. Career highlights include selection for the YSI Sculpture Network 2022 and in 2023 was a Nominated Recipient of the Henry Moore Foundation. They have been selected as Tees Valley Visual Artist of the Year 2025. 

Sam Metz (they/them) is an artist working in between East Yorkshire and the East Midlands. They make drawing, animation and sculptural installation in response to neurodivergence and the body, often relating to stimming and ecology. They are interested in questioning sensory modality hierachies and exploring bodily movement. Their work seeks to answer the question, what might an embodied ethics of encounter look like that centred neurodivergence? Sam was the Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize winner 2025 and a nominated recipient of the Henry Moore Foundation Award 2023. 

Beth Smith: I was born in Salford. My early memories are of so-called slum clearance - wrecking balls, acres of rubble and only churches remaining. These churches gave me my first taste of Art. The plaster statues, the gilt and the Stations of the Cross. I came to study Literature and Art History at University of Leeds and began making Art. I was invited to exhibit by British Council in Abu Dhabi and London. I showed work widely and gained several awards. Personal circumstances led to me having to stop making Art for 15-20 years. Glad to say I am now back in action and it gives me great joy. 

Bethany Stead (b.1995, Wakefield) is based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Through drawing, painting and sculpture, Stead uses figuration and visual language which disrupts our fragile social fabric. Her work is concerned with the sense of discomfort of inhabiting bodies, forming a kind of psychological dissection. She examines themes of health, hierarchy, deviance, worship, garment and the posthuman, filtered through the lens of class and sexuality. Stead graduated from Newcastle University, 2019. She was awarded the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award, selected for the Girlpower Residency, South-France, and recently had her first international solo exhibition at Cub_ism_ Artspace, (Shanghai, China), 2025.