Access BEAF Network
Access BEAF is a strand of our work at BEAF that aims to support artists who may have experienced barriers in accessing and working in the art world. Access BEAF is a supportive group for Neurodivergent, Disabled and Global Majority Artists* in Dorset and Hampshire.
What We Do:
• We have regular meetings to chat, share ideas and work, and build connections.
• We create opportunities for artists to develop their work, learn new skills, and shape the future of BEAF.
• We attend exhibitions and events together.
• We offer ways to get involved with our wider work at BEAF, from volunteering, workshops and OSC events and talks at The Old School House in Boscombe.
No Art Qualifications Needed!
We welcome all artists from the global majority and neurodivergent and disabled artists, working in any creative field—whether it’s painting, textiles, animation, illustration, or something else entirely! You don’t need a formal art education, just a passion for creativity and an interest in the conversation.
What Do We Mean by ‘Global Majority’?
The term ‘global majority’ refers to people who identify as Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, Indigenous to the global south, and/or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities.’ It recognises that these groups actually make up most of the world’s population.
What Do We Mean by ‘Neurodivergent’?
Many people identify as being neurodivergent, and there are many current conversations about neurodiversity. Definitions around the word neurodivergent include meaning that some people’s brains work differently to what is considered to be ‘typical’ or ‘normal’.
Neurodiversity can include: Autism, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Dyslexia, Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder), Dyscalculia, Tourette Syndrome, Mental health conditions. This list is non-exhaustive! Read more here from Shape Arts.
Join ACCESS BEAF
If you’re a Neurodivergent, Disabled and/or a Global Majority Artist and want to be part of a growing creative community, we’d love to hear from you.
Please email Sharon James, our Access BEAF Coordinator with a little bit about yourself and she will reach out to you.
ACCESS BEAF NETWORK
Supporting Neurodivergent, Disabled and Global Majority Artists
Sharon James
Sharon James (she/her), is a multidisciplinary artist. Currently her main focus is painting. She visually investigates her experiences as a black, gay mother of three. Documenting the ‘white noise’ of motherhood. The things that we see so often, that we forget to marvel in their extraordinariness. Her work also explores her cultural heritage, queer identity and current events.
Sharon is a member of Your Shout’ Global Majority Leaders Network, co-founder of Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective and newly appointed trustee at Dorset Visual Arts.
Carmel De’Lisser
Carmel De’Lisser (she/her), known as Cathartic Brush, is a self taught intuitive artist of mixed heritage. Her work is deeply rooted in symbolism and the journeys we take in transformation and awakenings.“I believe to bare your soul through a creative process is to breathe life into your own story.”
Working in “flow state” and using meditation and ritual as part of her practice each piece is direct response to time, place and emotional connection. Multiform artist using words, pictures and sculpture to tell stories and explore her connection to the natural and spiritual world and the place it has in our modern lives.
Exhibiting with her collective (B.R.A.C: Boscombe Radical Arts Collective)Connected Grounds 2024
We Rise 2025 and solo work in Home 2025
Immersive Installations : The Wilding, a forest of emotions 2025
The Wintering : 2025
Adilson Naueji
Adilson Naueji (he/him), is a self-taught Angolan painter based in Bournemouth, England, celebrated for his powerful, socially relevant art. Drawing from his Ovimbundu and Tchokwé African heritage, he is passionate about documenting and sharing histories, often incorporating research into African rituals, masks, and traditions to engage and empower the Black community.
Naueji’s unique style employs a realist approach focusing on human features to explore the relationship between individuals and their environment. Through acrylic and oil paintings, he documents daily urban life and amplifies genuine narratives, making him a valuable cultural contributor.
Despite being an emerging artist, his talent has quickly gained recognition. Highlights include his first solo exhibition, BH5 Boscombe Beyond Your Eyes, addressing marginalisation and resilience; co-founding the Boscombe Radicle Artist Collective (BRAC); participation in the BEAF Art Festival 2023; and winning the first Lighthouse Poole Open Call 2024.
Monica Bonomo
Monica Bonomo, (she/her). Monica’s work explores our relationship with plants through botanical crafts such as herbal medicine, natural colour exploration, and plant-based storytelling. At the heart of her practice lies a deep interest in our ever-evolving connection to the Earth and the knowledge systems that have sustained this relationship across generations. Through environmental activism and socially engaged practice, she seeks to broaden our understanding of community, recognising the intricate, co-evolved relationships between humans, plants, and the wider ecosystem.
Working primarily with organic materials such as natural fibres and plants, she often incorporate repurposed and recycled elements, honouring cycles of regeneration and care. Digital media forms an important part of the process, documenting the landscapes, gardens, and environments she engages with. Inspired by markets, forests, and communal growing spaces, her practice aims to preserve traditional knowledge, reveal the living and medicinal properties of plants, and foster environmental awareness rooted in care, reciprocity, and connection.
Mahtab Grimshaw
Mahtab Grimshaw (she/her), is a British/Iranian multidisciplinary artist whose practice centres on puppetry, wellbeing, and community connection. She holds a B.A. in Puppetry Theatre and an M.A. in Drama & Literature from the University of Tehran, and has recently completed a Diploma in Puppet Therapy, deepening her interest in how puppets can act as bridges to our deepest human emotions. Her work explores the unique, transformative way humans interact with puppets, how they offer distance, metaphor, safety, and surprising emotional honesty. She has also worked for more than a decade as an art director, TV host, producer, animator for media.
Alongside her studio practice, Mahtab facilitates clay, sculpting, and puppetry workshops for families, focusing on creativity, confidence, and collaborative storytelling. Her projects bring together art, culture, and human connection, shaped by her belief in the transformative power of shared creative experiences.
She is an active member of the global majority collectives Kainaat and BRAC, and recently launched a small Persian supper club that blends food, poetry, culture, and community, another way she brings people together around stories and shared care.
Anne Charbel
Anne Charbel (she/her), is a writer, theatre-maker, and installation artist based in Bournemouth. She trained with Identity School of Acting (IDSA). Anne has performed with several local theatre groups, and is a founding member of the Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective (BRAC).
Karina West
Karina West (she/her), is a Poole-based artist whose work draws from her lived experiences. Through mixed media, including painting, textiles, tufted art, punch needle embroidery, sound, and installation, Karina explores themes of identity, growth, and resilience. Her work often incorporates symbolic and uplifting imagery, such as vibrant colours, feathers, celestial motifs, and natural elements, to reflect the complexities of dual heritage and the ongoing journey of self-discovery.
Karina’s art is deeply personal, with recurring motifs that celebrate authenticity, inner strength, and the imperfect beauty of becoming. She invites viewers to engage with her evolving narrative, inspiring conversations about hope, transformation, and the layers that shape who we are.
Shayna Fonseka
Shayna Fonseka (she/her) is a British-Sri Lankan artist working with a range of organic and synthetic materials, from clay, steel, paint, wallpaper, stickers, foliage, and bricks. She holds an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, a BFA from the Slade School of Art and a diploma from Central Saint Martins. Her work examines urban spaces as personal sites of transcendence, exploring how sensory and spatial experiences cultivate a grounded sense of being amid growing instability.
Fonseka was recently awarded the Erna Plachte Award 2024 and shortlisted for the Oxford Review of Books Art Award. Select exhibitions include: TYFBAF, Silian Gallery, London, 2025; Questions on Drawing, Exvoto Gallery, London, 2025; Carry on Baggage, Galeria Augustine, Lisbon, 2023; Can’t Take My Eyes off You, Indigo + Madder, London, 2022; A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary, 2022, amongst others.
Aizhan Omarova
Aizhan (she/her) is a mixed media intuitive artist based in Bournemouth, originally from Kazakhstan. Her work is rooted in an exploration of the deeper layers of life — the unseen, the symbolic, and the emotional undercurrents that shape our experiences. By combining various materials, textures, and techniques, she creates pieces that invite viewers to pause, reflect, and connect with something beyond the surface. Ultimately, her goal is to evoke a sense of wonder, curiosity, and recognition — as if each piece opens a small doorway into the inner world of the soul and the greater mysteries of existence.
Amy Hopwood
Amy Hopwood (she/her) is a musician and artist inspired by folklore, fairytales, psychology, nature and the trials of being human. She writes, sings and produces original folk songs, often using thick blankets of harmony, field recordings from nature and folk instruments such as tenor guitar, banjo, accordion and fiddle. She accompanies the songs with handmade drawings, embroidery, needle-felted characters and stop motion animation, allowing her to stitch together both the sounds and the pictures of the stories in her head.
Amy has always been the sort of person who struggles to ignore the elephant in the room, but through her art and songwriting, she is able to sit the elephant down, offer it a cup of tea and have a good old chat. Her playful storytelling might lead her listeners into dark places, but always with warmth, humour or stoicism.
Dhanraz Ramdharry
Dhanraz (he/him) is a mixed heritage local artist, specialising in the sight sized method of portraiture. He has a keen interest in keeping the traditional techniques of drawing and painting from life alive, following the teachings of many past masters such as Velasquez, Gainsborough, Lawrence and Sargent. He is also keen to embrace the opportunity to introduce contemporary art into his work finding a balance with old and new.
Dhanraz won the public vote at Doncaster art fayre 2023, with a piece that was contemporary yet still had a traditional grounding. Dhanraz is a commissioned portrait artist, who also teaches at AUB and his own studio in Southbourne.
Mayre Casadei
Mayre (she/her) is a neurodivergent, jungle Amazon–born artist whose practice responds to environmental loss, displacement, and our responsibility toward the land. Leaving the Amazon at the age of two has shaped a lasting connection to place and a sense of rupture that continues to inform her work.
Using natural, reclaimed, and tactile materials, she explores the intersection of mental health, care, and ecological awareness. Her work values slowness, listening, and quiet, reflective encounters, offering accessible ways for audiences to engage physically, emotionally, or sensorially.
Mayre aims to create spaces that encourage attention, reflection, and connection, inviting viewers to consider their relationship with the environment, the impact of human activity, and the possibility of more ethical, sustainable ways of being in the world.
Melanie Ffitch-Mitchell
Mel (she/her) is a disabled and neurodivergent artist based in Dorset. Her practice is multi-disciplinary, lately with a focus on large, or oversized sculptures, depicting food, in the style of the late Claus Oldenburg, with a clear nod to Pop Art.
Her sculptures are quirky, fun, and tactile in nature, where she encourages audience members to touch, and engage with the work in a way that is comfortable for them.
Iñe
Their practice is intuitive and process-led. Drawing and colouring are used as a way to slow down, regulate the nervous system and process lived experience. Repetition allows the work to unfold gradually, creating complex visual spaces from simple actions. The act of making is as important as the finished piece, inviting rest, daydreaming and close attention. Iñe’s work embraces play, imperfection and simplicity while holding emotional depth and layered meaning.They use their childhood nickname Iñe as their artist name, keeping their creative self separate from their legal identity.
Their work is archived @pipinepeperine
Carrie Mason
Carrie Mason (she /her) is a British Artist working across drawing, sculpture & printmaking. She holds an MA and BA in Fine Art from the Arts University Bournemouth.
Her work uses repetitive actions to transform materials and create drawings. Her quiet, intensive practice explores the physicality of materials as an antidote to living in an increasingly digital age and the challenges of being late diagnosed autistic.
Mason was recently awarded an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice grant to explore rope as a sculpture material and is undertaking a residency at Bridport Museum and will be exhibiting her creative response to their rope & net collection in May 2026.
Select exhibitions include Bind, Sherborne House; Private Spaces, Sway (2025) and Present Tense, God’s House Tower, Southampton (2024); and solo exhibitions Sea Change (2024); Stone Paper Thread (2023) and Being in Time (2022).
Stuart Faulkner
Stuart is a HE/HIM ADHD BA(HONS) wacky artist – extremely serious about not taking himself too seriously.
His art is mostly about entertainment and inviting the public to participate. As a painter he describes his work as “picture riddles”, as an art tutor (a brush of genius) he encourages people to “celebrate the wonkyness” and as a musician “rather cacophonous”.
For Stuart art is very much a part of life, a full time daydreamer, every idea a key to a world of infinite possibilities….. (might as well follow the fun ones).
Stuart won “The Great Yorkshire Show Off” comedy award in 2016
Cynthia Chidokwe
Nigerian artist Cynthia (she/her) creates distinctive portraits featuring elongated necks and multiple skin tones through deliberate color-blocking. Working both traditionally and digitally, each figure displays carefully selected combinations that complement each other in visually striking compositions.
After completing her MA in Illustration in the UK, experiences with isolation led her to question why surface differences seem to matter so profoundly. This shaped her understanding that people contain multitudes—far too complex to be defined by any single characteristic.
The elongated necks symbolize voices refusing to be silenced, creating visual space for historically marginalized perspectives. The interplay of diverse skin tones demonstrates how individuals embody multiple identities simultaneously, suggesting authentic representation requires acknowledging the full spectrum of human experience.
Her love for fashion infuses the work with cultural richness, as carefully chosen garments and accessories enhance each figure’s narrative. These portraits challenge conventional beauty standards, celebrating how differences strengthen humanity when they coexist rather than compete.
Frida Korang
Frida (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, DJ and currently a Fine Arts student at Arts Bournemouth University, exploring identity, memory, and emotion through film photography, screen printing, and tactile materials like clay, wood, and metal which are rooted in her African heritage.
Born and raised in Italy, she cherishes memories and a sense of belonging. Through her experiences in some west African countries and western societies—she reflects on the complexity of everyday life, the weight of memory and the strength of underrepresented voices.
Guided by imagination and emotion rather than rigid plans, she create art that honours vulnerability, challenges norms, and embraces imperfection.
Her practice is a space for truth, transformation, and connection—where memory and material come together to tell stories that are often unseen but deeply felt.
Tobi Aluko
Tobi Aluko (he/him) is inspired by the artistic expressions of the Romantic era. He creates paintings, fiction, poetry and rhetoric in this expression, but reimagined for a modern audience. He considers his expression, 21st Century Romanticism. His artistic focus revolves around the central theme of love, beauty and the love for nature.
Tobi believes, ‘…art has the power to teach love, a profound need in today’s world.’
Jasmine Wheeler
Jasmine Wheeler (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, collage, and printmaking. She holds a BA from Arts University Bournemouth, where she developed a material-led and experimental approach to making.
Informed by her experience as a neurodivergent creative, her practice embraces texture, repetition, and playful experimentation as tools for exploring and communicating her lived experience of the world. Her artwork reflects themes of identity, belonging, and nostalgia through a surreal lens. Drawing on personal memory, emotional landscapes, and sensory associations, she creates tactile and visually rich works that blur the line between the familiar and the imagined. Through intuitive, hands-on processes, Jasmine invites viewers to witness perspectives often overlooked within society, offering insight into her way of seeing, processing, and relating to the world.
@jasminemaywheeler
Background about Access BEAF
The initial Access BEAF group was first set up in 2021 to enable global majority* practitioners in the area to support one another, including those who have experienced racism and may have faced barriers into accessing the arts and education. BEAF’s tailored support with the inital group was limited due to covid restrictions and further research that needed to be done in the area, however a small exhibition was produced, showcasing their work as part of the BEAF 2023 Festival.
Since then, thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, we launched our first Access BEAF Residents Programme (2023-2024)—a pilot initiative to support artists even further. Culminating in a group exhibition ‘Connected Grounds’ that took place at B.A.D (Boscombe Arts Depot). Read more about the project here.
The ‘graduate residents’ have now formed an Arts Collective Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective.
In 2024 we formed our second cohort of Access BEAF residents programme supporting Neurodivergent and Disabled Artists across Dorset and Hampshire with mentoring, talks, workshops and exhibition support. Read more about the project here.
